Entering China: The Train from Ulaan Baatar to Beijingby Randi / August 2, 2017
After the endless dilapidation of Mongolia, the modernity and familiarity of a big city like Beijing was a breath of fresh air. Well, a breath of air. Walking around the smog with giant smiles on our faces, we have never been so happy to see Starbucks, H&M, heck they even had a Uniqlo! There were SKYSCRAPERS! THERE WERE SIDEWALKS! The cars were driving on paved roads! With painted lines on them for following traffic! No one followed the lines or any semblance of traffic laws but still, they were there! We were so happy to be in an established city, you cannot believe. Every time we saw stairs that weren’t falling apart, we smiled. Sure, for some reason the stairs all over the city are only 3 inches in height (what’s going on there) and we have to take them at least 2 at a time to make any progress and going down two steps at a time is suuuuuperrrr awkward, but hey, it’s A CITY!
EVEN MORE SALE?? well by gum!
There was so much to see and do, but our first day we decided to leisurely explore and eat and try to take it easy while we could, with four packed sightseeing days and months of hectic travel still to come. We had an amazing lunch (separate post natch!), stocked up at the vegetarian shop (will be in the food post), and checked out Tiananmen Square, the thing we had to do our first day.
HELLO MR WOBOT I WUV YOU WOBOT
So many people but because the square is so big it’s probably the least dense crowd anywhere in China!
Damn that place is big! And crowded! And very impressive. It’s the world’s largest public square, three times bigger than Red Square, and speaking of Moscow, I haven’t seen such a police presence since our time in that city. All around Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City environs, it’s all police barricades, all the time. The lines can stretch for enormous city blocks, and you have to go down stairs and through underground tunnels and back up only to be in another line for security and metal detector checks, then back in a line to cross the street underground then MORE labyrinthine underground tunnels to try to find the part of the square you actually want to be in. It is not easy to get around, and you cannot bet on being somewhere at a certain time because the path that makes sense to get there will not be available. The heavy police control of the area put the Moscow barricading shenanigans to shame.
We arrived that first time in the evening, and there was a huge crowd of people waiting around waiting for something. We were excited – what had we chanced upon? We found European lookers who we guessed would speak English, and they said that just every sunset there is a flag-lowering ceremony, and same for raising at sunrise. Dude. Y’all need better activities. We did not wait around for that.
The north side of the square is marked by the huge portrait of Mao, at the Gate of Heavenly Peace. The Chinese really know how to give epic names.
The north side of the square is marked by the huge portrait of Mao, at the Gate of Heavenly Peace. The Chinese really know how to give epic names.
The square seems to go on forever, with a few important buildings on the sides but nothing really in the middle except billions of people. Most striking to us was our first glimpse into the government’s close monitoring of its people: there are loads of security cameras everywhere, mounted on every pole, everywhere you look.
We went back to the square another day for an epic day of sightseeing. We had SUCH a schedule: Get up super early to see Mao’s tomb (another embalmed corpse to add to our list this summer!) (opens at 7:30am), explore the Forbidden City for the first half of the day into the afternoon, and then visit the Temple of Heaven in the afternoon. It would be a lot, but there’s a lot to see here! Our plans to get to Mao early and done with were thwarted by several things. First, the police barricading was off the charts. We walked for a good 30 minutes past where we wanted to go because we just couldn’t get into that section. It was ridiculous. When we finally got to Mao’s tomb, we were concerned at the lack of visible queueing, considering everything we read said that the lines would be super long. There was a single guard outside his tomb, and a few straggler tourists looking in like ‘hey why can’t we go in?’ But yeah, we couldn’t go in. We googled. Mao’s tomb has been closed for months for renovations or new embalming time or some such nonsense and won’t open till the fall! Nooo! Our most important corpse of the summer! Lucky Z saw the shiny body when he was here for the Olympics, but now I’ll have to come back. Or, ya know, I’m okay. I have seen a lot of shiny corpses lately. Just a disappointment not to add the big kahuna to my list.
MAO I KNOW YOU’RE IN THERE LET ME IN
Anyway, we then made our way to the Forbidden City, along with all of China’s billion+ people. Hot damn, I don’t think I’ve ever been in such an enormous crowd for so long. It was the most crowded place ever, so big and endless a site but teeming with people in every corner, at every turn. I figured, jeez but at least this is like, the MOST crowded and important tourist attraction in the biggest most populated city in China, so it can only get better from here. HAHA but Beijing isn’t the biggest city! I made an ass out of you and me! Shanghai has almost like 9 million more people! AND SHANGHAI ISN’T EVEN THE BIGGEST! This country is enormous! Even little cities we’ve never heard of have more people than NYC! ahhhhhh. So yes, the Forbidden City is amazing and important to see, but dayum, take your Ativan, because PEOPLE BE PUSHING.
when it started raining people hid under cover like they were gonna melt
Not just the name of a Chinese restaurant we used to get takeout from in the Illadelph, Forbidden City is a palace complex that was home to two imperial dynasties until the last Qing emperor. So not a city, but as big as a city. They’re trying to get away from that whole ‘wait is it a city no definitely not a city but sort of’ name by calling it the Palace Museum but that sounds super lame compared to the imposing connotation of the real name. Now it is full of ancient gates and buildings used as museums now, for imperial jewels and art and clocks and stuff. The gates and the buildings from the outside are the most impressive, but it goes on and on forever. FOREVER. It’s hot in the summer and sticky, and even though it rained for a bit when we were there it was still so gross. And people touch your arms because there’s no room even though it is CITY-SIZED and there’s no worse feeling than strange sweaty arm touching your sweaty arm and brb I have to go vomit.
First stop in the palace grounds was the pottery museum, because the BOOK SAID SO. It was fine, I mean pottery is not thrilling, but the ceiling in that building was awesome. Yes I liked the ceiling best.
Then we started making our way through the famous gates. The best part is that I got to act like Mulan and take a picture in front of the steps of where she flies in at the end and like saves the emperor or whatever I forget the plot but I know the music is great.
Then we started making our way through the famous gates. The best part is that I got to act like Mulan and take a picture in front of the steps of where she flies in at the end and like saves the emperor or whatever I forget the plot but I know the music is great.
So oh, backtrack, because if I try to move pictures around it’ll crash because getting on the internet here in China is precarious like a perch. Upon arrival at the Forbidden City, you get in a super long line to buy tickets. Suuuper long. We waited at least a half hour. It doesn’t include everything in the grounds – as always, you have to pay extra for some exhibits like the Clock Tower and the Treasury. Boo. Right before entering the ticket area, there’s a big toilet. No one does public toilets like the Chinese! Right outside, we chanced upon this water show, like a baby-Bellagio.
You enter the Meridian Gate, and you take pictures with a billion Chinese people in them. Then you go through a temple, see a throne room, then go through another gate, then another temple, then another gate, all separated by big plazas and millions of people and it takes forever and you are literally like 1% through the enormous grounds.
The best part of the Forbidden City is the Imperial Garden, which is likely the last part of your visit so make sure you leave time for it. I wish we had gone faster through the endless gate and temple part to spend more time in the gardens, but it was all super crowded anyway. Literally all my garden photos look like just group shots of Chinese people, so this is my attempt at photographing the northern sections with as few people as possible:
garden
I went IN THE DEPTHS OF CROWD to get this picture. It was so sweaty so many sweaty arms omg omgomg
I think we didn’t even see all of it, because it’s kind of a maze of 7000 square meters of beauty and 7000 million other visitors. It’s lovely though.
Nine Snakes Wall or something
The best thing about the Forbidden city, besides of course seeing all these important sights, is that they have a good number of well-signed toilets. Harder to find but just as important is the restaurant, which does bento-style (is it wrong to use that word to describe Chinese food) meals and has a mushroom-based vegetarian option. I’m including it here and not on the food post because we are talking about the Forbidden City and it just makes sense.
This was actually really good and not just because I was very hungry! It was 46 RMB (like $7) which is great considering it was the one restaurant in the entire grounds and they could have seriously overcharged. There are several snack stands and cafes with little boxed burgers and other nonsense, so the restaurant is worth finidng. Bring a lot of water and snacks though, especially in the summer because it will be hot and sweaty. You’ll be able to buy water here and there but it’s expensive, and I saw mostly just little tiny 16 oz. bottles which is a joke, those are good for one sip.
The Forbidden City is a must do, of course, but is kind of stressful so be sure you are in the right mindset for it. Like don’t go to a museum beforehand or anything completely foolish like that. It did seem less crowded when we left around 3 or 4pm ish, but considering we arrived at like 10am, you don’t want to risk not having enough time if you arrive late. Go, get it over with, get good pictures of famous sights and a million strangers, and then move on to the more enjoyable places.
Like the Temple of Heaven.
We went to the Temple of Heaven immediately after our super long Forbidden City day because we are masochists. The beautiful, relatively calm park features wide open but manicured spaces and several important buildings to visit inside. You need to get the more expensive ticket option in order to enter the important buildings, most especially the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests, which is a gorgeous blue building that, I’ma guess, was for praying for good harvests.
So beautiful, right? This is a 19th century reproduction of the building that was originally built in 1420 – it was destroyed in the 1800s by a LIGHTNING BOLT! What are the odds.
The Imperial Vault of Heaven is another of the inside sights to see. It was for the early gymnastics teams to practice their vaults, I assume.
I’m sorry if this pic is actually not the vault place it’s hard to remember so many things when I have so many song lyrics in my memory spaces
The Echo Wall is apparently able to carry a whisper from one side to the other, so you could communicate with someone far away, and the book says that it’s hard to find a time when the crowd won’t inhibit your efforts to do so, but what really inhibited us was the complete lack of signage about where these supposed whisper spots were located. FOR SHAME. Whatever. You know how else I can hear Z? By standing next to him.
The Echo Wall is apparently able to carry a whisper from one side to the other, so you could communicate with someone far away, and the book says that it’s hard to find a time when the crowd won’t inhibit your efforts to do so, but what really inhibited us was the complete lack of signage about where these supposed whisper spots were located. FOR SHAME. Whatever. You know how else I can hear Z? By standing next to him.
There’s also a place called the Animal Killing Pavilion which like, yes I’m sure that’s an accurate name but COME THE F ON, BRIDGET. Aside from that, the Temple of Heaven was a lovely park. I wish there were more toilets – it was hard to find one inside the park and I almost pulled a Mongolia behind a tree. But it’s definitely a must visit.
Another day, we did some temple-viewing: first, the Lama Temple and then the Confucius Temple & Imperial College. It’s so interesting how similar they are in terms of architecture and structure and design, except the former is the typical kind brimming with piles of money and fruit given in devotion, and the latter has none of that. I like Confucius’s style. It bothers me so much to see poor people put their money and food in front of a golden statue. It’s SO weird. Like, use that to feed yourself. Religion is such a scam. But at least these temples are beautiful.
i can’t smile because my hat is so messed up
The Lama Temple is apparently the most renowned Tibetan Buddhist temple that is not in Tibet, which is a big deal. The guide book says it’s “a glittering attraction in Beijing’s Buddhist firmament,” which cracks me up because that’s like almost exactly what Lina Lamont says in her interview and I keep hearing it in her voice and getting the giggles. The temples are imposing and gorgeous, and the statues aren’t boring even though by now we’ve seen many iterations on the same theme.
New here though, and common throughout China we would find, is that they give you incense to burn at designated fire pits, essentially, to assist in your prayer. Even though I hate incense, smoke, and perfumey smells of all kinds, I participated because I got to burn things for free. There really are fire stations all over these temples, with big open flames with tons of people just pushing each other trying to get their sticks into the fire. It is dangerous. We got ours enflamed and then were like, so now what do we do. We looked around for guidance and realized that all these people were in fact Buddhists and were bowing to the statues with their incense smoke being offered to their deities. We were like oh maybe we just stand back.
They gave us packs of 10 sticks but the signs said only to burn 3 and we didn’t want to offend the gods so we have partially full incense packs from Lama Temple as our very first souvenir of this entire summer. What are the odds they actually make it back to London?
daaaaaaaamn what this bitch’s problem!
During our time in Mongolia and in Southeast Asia, we learned enough about Buddhism and the various players that we are now able to recognize symbolism in the statues and be like oh is that Green Tara or is that the other guy? Pretty interesting and confusing. I’m reminded here of the yoga retreat/cult compound I went to in California where the elders told me that their esteemed yoga Founder was both Jesus and Buddha in a previous life. Cool. Cool cool cool cool.
Just down the street from Lama Temple is Confucius Temple & Imperial College, so make a big morning or afternoon of seeing both of these sites plus all the neighborhood’s many hutongs (narrow alleyways with historic courtyard homes set back from the busyness of the city; the books make a bigger deal about these hutongs than they’re worth, like, you’ll see them just being out in the city and they’re fine but not like ‘do a whole hutong walking tour!’ levels of importance). The Confucian Temple’s tranquility was undeniable, with pavilions and important old trees and, of course, the statue of the big guy himself.
YO FYOOOOSH WHAT’S THE HAAAAPS
It’s nice just to walk around the outside grounds (I wasn’t really into the museum-y parts lining the perimeter, they are boring) and enjoy the moat and bridges around the main temples.
I love a good moat
On the same grounds is the Imperial College, not to be confused with the one that spawned many a great University Challenge team, but the one built by the grandson of Kublai Khan in 1306. It was once the most important and highest regarded academic college, for three dynasties.
it totally still feels like a college!
Am I just drinking the Kool Aid or does Confucianism seem totally reasonable? I think I need to learn more about it, but the choice quotes they had reprinted in English along the grounds were hard to argue with. Stuff like be kind and don’t be a daft prick and stuff like that. On board.
Honestly, the best part about Beijing – besides being in a real city with real city perks – is that it put all the amazing English tee shirts and stuff we’ve seen in Russia and Mongolia to shame. Of course the stuff we see in China is going to be soo much better, it’s all made here. And I don’t feel super bad about pointing out how dumb it all is because western people trying to use Chinese characters (or any character-based language) is 100x worse. This is mostly adorable. Every time, we want to be like, do you know what your shirt says?! From 90-year-old men wearing shirts that say “Parental Advisory: Explicit Content” to young men wearing shirts saying “The Future Looked Bright” to girls wearing “Dream of Hope and Tomorrow is Yes” sweatshirts, it’s an endless and amazing onslaught of bad English.
does it say anything ABOVE plagiarism???!!! I hope not
THAT’S NOT VERY NICE
I guess that’s close enough
As such, the signage around the city (and country) is flipping awesome too.
looks like someone just saw the movie with Sarah Marshall where the cell phone KILLS PEOPLEEEEE
I don’t know what this means
WAIT WAIT, HOLD THE PHONE – PEEING IN THE POOL IS YOU ARE THE BEST???
The above toilet sign is obviously my Life Credo
just super impressed that they got this verb tense right but then spelled around wrong, SO CLOSE
And of course, those of you on my facebook have seen this incredible one:
We also loved these people taking a photoshoot of their baby right on the street:
The least best thing about Beijing is realizing how rough it will be for us throughout China coming from the UK, Land of Proper Queueing. Chinese people DO NOT QUEUE. We’d be waiting in line for something, anything – the subway’s security check (every metro station begins with a bag x-ray), a toilet, tickets for a tourist attraction, checkout at the grocery store – and without fail at least two people will just cut right in front of us when we get to the front. And I don’t think it’s out of rudeness – they really just do not recognize that as wrong. It’s very much dog eat dog (I won’t make the obvious dumb joke), everyone looking out for himself, and discourteous behavior is not good or bad, it’s just part of the culture. It’s annoying in crowded places like on the subway – you know how if someone is trying to pass, you’ll scooch up a little to let them pass, fully intending to reclaim your space after they pass and not remaining on your tiptoes with no center of gravity? Yeah here, someone will take that little bit of space you scooched for before you can put your heels down. It’s annoying. The subways really are sooo crowded. And despite being such an international city, everyone stared at us for being white. It is not fun, and I imagine it is going to get super old super fast, and only will worsen as we go into the not-so-touristed bits.
You know what else is super hard wrap my head around? Everyone burps and farts, and LOUD. It’s insane. We knew about all the spitting – we didn’t realize just how prevalent it was, but we knew people would hack up a lung and spit it on the street. (I didn’t expect young beautiful women to do it, which was sexist of me, because I quickly learned they are gross champs at it. It’s kind of hilarious.) (Is it because of the pollution? It’s more forgivable if so.) But we did not know about the farting. It is unmistakable – in restaurants, cafes, museums, trains, we keep hearing like a sound effects version of a fart and realize it’s coming from a nearby person and then another and another. SO GROSS.
HOTEL
We stayed at one of the 161 Wanfujing Hotel chain outlets, right down the street from the nicer Courtyard version of the hotel. It was fine, more like a hostel than a hotel, or at least a budget hotel, but with our own bathroom. The bed and bathroom were clean at least, if the room at large just…wasn’t, and the lobby area was nice. They had a mezzanine seating area that the sign said was open till 11pm (the wifi was better there; awful in the rooms) but every night a girl would kick us out at 10pm and say ‘just tonight is special closing time’ or some nonsense that by the 3rd or 4th time I just refused to leave until 11pm. The only trouble with the hotel is that there’s a tourist service desk in the lobby, a separate company’s representative, but still, in the lobby, and the guy selling the tours is a big bag o’ dicks. We got our Great Wall tour through him (so did everyone in the hotel and all surrounding hotels and hostels, apparently, it was just for the most popular big bus trips there) and it was different from what he sold us in terms of size and vehicle and other details. When we confronted him after the fact, he asked if we had a recording of him to prove that he lied. F-ing hell I wish I punched him in the throat but I can’t get arrested here. Luckily it wasn’t that big a deal, we still had an amazing time on the Wall, but to be confronted with a level of customer service that makes London’s look good is astonishing.
Aside from Prickadick McGee, we really enjoyed our time in Beijing and would happily go back. On the corner of the main street leading to our hotel was a supermarket (yay cheap water!), and every night there would be a group of old ladies dancing on the corner in a choreographed dance. It was amazing. We wondered how they learned it, but then one night we saw the instructor calling out moves, presumably teaching a new dance. Was so fun. I love old lady public group dancing.
GOALS
The food was amazing (next post), as was the Great Wall, which warrants its own separate post too. No matter what you think it’ll be like, it will still surprise you with how spectacular it is. I would love to go back to see another section of it. As a city, Beijing was exactly what we needed at this time, and was a great welcome back to civilization. Getting anywhere was a bit intense, just because there were so many people, but honestly after our time in sparse Mongolia, a huge number of people in a big city was kind of refreshing. More like home! Obviously, we got sick of the unfathomable crowds quickly (1 in 5 people in the world are Chinese now? that’s more than are Penn State graduates!) but for our first stop of 5+ weeks in China, Beijing was everything we could have asked for.
if you look closely, you should see why Panama should be pissed
Related Posts
The Train from Hell to Guilin, Plus A Brief Pass Through Guilin, China
August 3-4, 2017
Dear little baby infant laptop,
Don’t go to Shangrao.
Dear little baby infant laptop,
Don’t go to Shangrao.
Just don’t do anything that would make you have to go through it or near it or involving it.
I will forever feel guilty that I insisted on adding Huangshan to our itinerary because well ffs it’s one of the top five sights in all of China. But because the weather for our climb was so horrendous, it was kind of a waste. And because of that wasted visit, we had to get a train from Huangshan to Guilin – but the only route featured a 4 hour layover in Shangrao.
I SAID DON’T DO THAT!
Four hours is a long time in a train station with not much to do. But in a station filled to capacity, where 1000 Chinese men are smoking under No Smoking signs (they are hung ironically in this country) and the bathrooms are worse than an ashtray, it’s hell.
We amused ourselves for the first hour by trying to get these crazy Chinese self-heating meals to cook, which was hilarious and actually very tasty for an instant pot meal. The instruction took us half an hour to decipher well enough with Google Translate’s photo option. We were nervous because there are two liquid packs – one for water, which goes with the rice to cook it, and one that goes with the heat pack to make the boiling water – that Google translate identified as ‘FEVER WATER’! So, it’s chemicals! Don’t eat that one!
How it works is, you have two containers, a big and a small, and many vacuum-packed foil containers of food. In the small container, you mix the water, rice, and ‘vegetables’ (I thought they were spices it was so small) packs. Then you put the lid on that one. Then, in the bigger container, you lay down the heating pad looking thing. Then you have to work fast: On top of the heating pad in the big container, pour the non-water-toxic-chemical liquid, and then quickly but carefully slide the smaller container into it without splashing yourself, then you place the UNOPENED foil pack of the main meal on top of the sealed smaller container, and then you cover the whole shibang with the big container’s lid.
i know this picture is too beautiful
AND THEN YOU REALIZE YOU FORGOT TO OPEN THE VENT OF THE BIG CONTAINER’S LID. DON’T DO THAT.
Literally within SECONDS, the entire explosive device we just created puffed out and made teapot sounds because the toxic liquid-heating pad combo was NO JOKE and it was already boiling, and we forgot to open the top lid’s vent. We hurriedly fumbled to use the spork provided to jab it and luckily jabbed it enough that the whole thing didn’t explode all over the train station. Although, while that would have sucked for us, it would have been good to do to the annoying people around us. Anyway, you wait 15 minutes for it to cook, and literally the entire time there is ample steam coming out of that vent. Food science is AWESOME. I’m so impressed by these meal packs in this country. I prefer the non-threatening kind that just requires boiling water, which the trains (and stations, so far) have, but when you don’t have access to it, these are awesome. And fun.
Literally within SECONDS, the entire explosive device we just created puffed out and made teapot sounds because the toxic liquid-heating pad combo was NO JOKE and it was already boiling, and we forgot to open the top lid’s vent. We hurriedly fumbled to use the spork provided to jab it and luckily jabbed it enough that the whole thing didn’t explode all over the train station. Although, while that would have sucked for us, it would have been good to do to the annoying people around us. Anyway, you wait 15 minutes for it to cook, and literally the entire time there is ample steam coming out of that vent. Food science is AWESOME. I’m so impressed by these meal packs in this country. I prefer the non-threatening kind that just requires boiling water, which the trains (and stations, so far) have, but when you don’t have access to it, these are awesome. And fun.
do you see the steam?!
After 15 minutes, we tentatively lifted the main lid and lots of steam came out. Then we set the main food pouch aside to cool a little before we tried opening it, and we checked the rice container. The rice cooked! It cooked too much, actually, and was a bit mushy and sticky, but still, pretty cool. We opened the tofu pouch – I got a mapo tofu box that was marked vegetarian (and our Google-translate-phone-scan confirmed, though it also said it contained ‘dry rock net covers’ and ‘whispers’) – and emptied the contents into the rice box and then I ate it and you know what? For an instant pot meal, it was really good!
And then, we had three more hours to kill.
well as long as it does it carefully i guess
Shangrao station was horrendous. We got there from our short first leg train at about 8pm, and our train wasn’t until midnight. The station was covered in No Smoking signs — with men smoking under them at all times. The bathrooms in the station were the smokiest places I’ve ever been in my life, like walking into big ashtrays. I felt like I couldn’t breathe the entire time. First we tried to get away from the main groups of smokers by sitting in an area a little farther away from the main board, but then station staff kicked us out because they close that area at 9pm. So we moved upstairs and had about an hour there before they kicked us out of there because it closes at 10pm! It was ridiculous. So we were forced to sit in the main station area with a thousand smelly smoky people with every seat taken, until our train. You’d think that at this time of night, a station would start emptying. But it just got busier and busier – there were tons of trains all night long. It was the busiest, dirtiest train station ever. And I simply could not breathe, which made me even more tired than I was anyway. I was eager to get on the train and finally go to sleep.
Hahahaha.
It was another Chinese train of the old sort, none of that fancy G train (the Beijing to Shanghai leg we took) stuff, but I was okay with that. We’ve had plenty of these sorts of trains, and as long as it wasn’t worse than before it would be fine.
Guess whaaat, it was so much worse that it was the worst night yet.
First of all, the train was grosser than any previous one. Dingy, dirty, and jfc the bathrooms. I’ll show you pictures because I just cannot do it justice with words. So gross and wet with things I don’t want us to think about. The beds were dirty, the sheets were stained, the walls were yellowed with age and browned with lack of cleaning in the past decade or so and who knows what else. I keep expecting to find like “Ming was here 1778” scratched into a wall. Our pictures through the windows are just pictures of filth.
was grosser in person
these were trickles
Second of all, it reeked of stale smoke, that awful smell that doesn’t go away. Fresh smoke was of course adding to it, but that awful staleness just would not dissipate. All of our stuff reeks. Fresh smoke you can at least give death stares to the culprit and try to close the source off from your room, but with everything already stale, there’s not much to do.
Next, the bottom bunks don’t lift up for storage like they did on every single other train we took. And the beds are less than a foot off the ground, so we can’t squeeze anything under except our boots. So our huge packs and the strangers’ suitcases are just in the middle of the floor, so we have no floor. Whenever we want to leave the room we have to climb on the two bottom bunks and jump out to the doorway. It’s a f-ing travesty.
But worst of all. Jesus Christ China. Worst of all, the two other beds in our cabin are occupied by two women, and each of them has a CHILD. So because no one gives a shit about laws here, we are six people in this tiny room, us two, two Chinese women, and two children, about 2 years old and maybe 5 years old. When we came in at midnight, exhausted, they were sleeping in the two bottom bunks – meaning, someone was sleeping in my bed. Even though they had paid for tickets for one bottom and one top. We couldn’t get into the room to put our bags anywhere (we didn’t realize that they didn’t fit underneath/that the bottoms didn’t lift up yet) because their giant suitcase and all the kids’ shoes and crap were all over the floor. We had to wake them up. One of the attendants came by to see why we were still standing outside the room and we tried to explain that someone was in my bed. Someone’s been sleeping in myyy bed. She woke up the woman and child and asked them to move up top. Instead of doing that, they all kind of just stood there for 15 minutes. Meanwhile the young woman was sleeping and kept motioning to turn the light off. Like f you lady you’re tired? We are too! Maybe you should have taken the correct beds instead of just planning to make people with the correct tickets move. In retrospect, I feel kind of terrible for making the older lady and the younger child move in the middle of the night, but I think considering I peed during this awful night more than ever because I didn’t sleep, it was better to bother them a lot once than bother them by stepping on them every 45 minutes. ALSO TAKE THE CORRECT SPOT.
Finally she got out and then got on the top bunk, and the attendant was like, all good? And I was like, dude, no, I’m not sleeping on these dirty sheets that these people were sleeping on! So she gathered them up and put them on top so I could get the “clean” ones down but they were still so disgusting. And there were no sheets, actually, just a pillow and a quilt with a duvet that was not actually on, just kind of a suggestion of a duvet that showed you how disgusting the inside comforter was, and you were supposed to taco yourself inside.
It took a while to get settled because there was no room to stand by the bed. My bag is just inside the door next to their suitcase, which knocked into me all night. It was so smoky all night that I had to sleep with my pollution mask, which made it even harder to get enough breath so all night I felt like I had someone sitting on my chest preventing me from breathing. The mask at least maybe made the air I was breathing better? I guess? but I couldn’t sleep with it on. I chose maybe preventing some lung cancer over sleep. We really are in the sticks of China now. No more Beijing and Shanghai fanciness and semblance of propriety. Raw China is wild and kind of frightening.
The children of course got up at 6am or so and were SO F-ING LOUD. And the mother would just respond to them in an equally loud voice. Great job continuing the tradition of ignoring other people and any idea of politeness. They just continued to talk and sing and stuff all morning. And we can’t really do anything because there’s no room to sit. I’m typing this with my knees bent into my chest and the computer on my knees because there’s no other option. I’m like in a small cage with barriers formed by suitcases and child’s toys – three of which, by the way, they just threw directly at me. Kind of hurt. No one said anything. Well I said JESUS F-ING CHRIST but they don’t speak English.
I was in the sink area brushing my teeth next to a man who spent 10 minutes just hacking into the sink and then blowing his nose into the water stream, like by covering one nostril at a time and just honking into the sink basin.
This morning we were stopped for like an hour when we weren’t supposed to be so that’s great, even more time in this shithole. I would 100% rather be in a Mongolian ger camp. At least there was fresh air. And space. So much space. Why can’t China and Mongolia share people or land and then Mongolia would have more than 4 people in its big space and then China could let people spread out a little, maybe put their feet on the floor. Has anyone brought this idea to the UN?
These are the most annoying children I’ve ever met. I usually like children. They are screaming all morning and throwing toys around. The older one just had a giant Cup of Noodles, and then five minutes later the mother gave him a giant bento box looking thing of rice and meat and so much food that she bought off someone walking down the carriage, I think. (They don’t offer to sell us anything). He’s like 6 and eating enough food for 3 adult men. He’s going to throw up on me, I just know it.
I hope Guilin is worth it. Huangshan wasn’t, stupid weather. Just such bad luck! Why are we getting such bad luck? I’m okay rolling with a few things going wrong but this week has been pretty dire.
I just went to the toilet and was in there for literally 30 seconds and someone banged on the door, like hurry up. I went out and said WHAT THE F IS WRONG WITH YOU? It’s kind of freeing not being understood by anyone. But I am losing it. I’m so tired and so angry with these people and the universe for this bad luck. And I’m REALLY sick of everyone on this train staring at us. Everyone keeps walking by our room and stopping to stare, multiple times each. And we can’t shut the door because we all don’t fit with all the luggage with the door closed. So they keep staring. They don’t get a lot of white people out here. It keeps getting worse, the attention, the farther away from the big tourist areas we go. It’s an awful feeling just knowing everyone is staring because you are strange to them. I just want to do whatever I’m going to do and not have to deal with everyone staring. It’s so annoying.
Okay tiny computer, I’m gonna shut you down and close my eyes until we get to Guilin. Pray.
GUILIN
After the train from hell ended, I saw a man holding a sign with my name on it outside the station, booked with the guest house we were staying in for our one night in Guilin before we leave in the morning for Yangshuo, the ‘relaxation’ section of our journey. When I tell you that this man was the worst driver in the history of driving, I know you will have trouble believing it, because 90% are drivers are ‘the worst drivers ever’, and 100% of Chinese drivers fit that bill. (The driving situation in China is without question the worst I’ve ever seen. Now I haven’t been to India so I know they will fight this battle out but I think it’s even money to bet on either as being the worst. Is that how betting works I don’t know. Anyway, drivers in China BLOW.) But even despite weeks now of dodging motorbikes when we have the green walk man, and cursing at cars that run through red lights as if they’re supposed to (no one ever gets pulled over, and everyone should), this man put them all to shame. It was supposed to be a 17 minute drive to our hotel. It took 45 minutes, and he didn’t even get us there.
First of all, he drove so slowly. Not cautious-slowly, as I tend to do (haha I don’t drive), but like, 10 miles an hour in a 50 mph zone slowly. Dangerous slowly. Despite traffic in the bustling city, there were no cars for like 200 feet in front of us at any point because he was going turtle paced. We got frustrated very quickly and tried saying ‘go faster please for the love of god go faster’ but he didn’t understand. We tried in Chinese but he also didn’t understand. No one understands any Chinese we say. I said the word for toilet 15 different ways to someone yesterday with every possible tone combo and she still didn’t get it. It’s TWO SYLLABLES, you can at least try to GUESS what I’m saying. Anyway, this guy didn’t get it and wasn’t moved by our hand motions to go go go, so it took forever. But then after like 10 minutes, he got into a turn lane that was going into an attraction’s parking lot. We were like, wtf are you doing. We tried to tell him that that clearly wasn’t right, and he didn’t get it. Finally he realized his mistake and had to make a u-turn and go alllll the way back down where we came from and alllll the way back to where we’d been to continue straight and omg we were FLIPPING OUT. Finally, a half hour later, he got us in the neighborhood of our hotel, but that’s it. He had no idea where it actually was, he had never been there before. The hotel sent a driver who had no idea where they were located. We asked him to call the hotel, we said call hotel call hotel and made the talking on a phone hand mime, but instead he called a friend whose call he missed. So we called the hotel, and they apologized and said they would send someone to meet us, they were just a few minutes’ walk away. So we got out of the car and told the idiot driver to piss off, and luckily a woman fetched us outside a building five or so minutes later and walked us to the guest house. It was ridiculous. Also, it wasn’t on that main street like its address says; it is down a little alley and behind the main street a ways so if you didn’t know the place, you wouldn’t find it. They should have told the idiot driver where to go.
First of all, he drove so slowly. Not cautious-slowly, as I tend to do (haha I don’t drive), but like, 10 miles an hour in a 50 mph zone slowly. Dangerous slowly. Despite traffic in the bustling city, there were no cars for like 200 feet in front of us at any point because he was going turtle paced. We got frustrated very quickly and tried saying ‘go faster please for the love of god go faster’ but he didn’t understand. We tried in Chinese but he also didn’t understand. No one understands any Chinese we say. I said the word for toilet 15 different ways to someone yesterday with every possible tone combo and she still didn’t get it. It’s TWO SYLLABLES, you can at least try to GUESS what I’m saying. Anyway, this guy didn’t get it and wasn’t moved by our hand motions to go go go, so it took forever. But then after like 10 minutes, he got into a turn lane that was going into an attraction’s parking lot. We were like, wtf are you doing. We tried to tell him that that clearly wasn’t right, and he didn’t get it. Finally he realized his mistake and had to make a u-turn and go alllll the way back down where we came from and alllll the way back to where we’d been to continue straight and omg we were FLIPPING OUT. Finally, a half hour later, he got us in the neighborhood of our hotel, but that’s it. He had no idea where it actually was, he had never been there before. The hotel sent a driver who had no idea where they were located. We asked him to call the hotel, we said call hotel call hotel and made the talking on a phone hand mime, but instead he called a friend whose call he missed. So we called the hotel, and they apologized and said they would send someone to meet us, they were just a few minutes’ walk away. So we got out of the car and told the idiot driver to piss off, and luckily a woman fetched us outside a building five or so minutes later and walked us to the guest house. It was ridiculous. Also, it wasn’t on that main street like its address says; it is down a little alley and behind the main street a ways so if you didn’t know the place, you wouldn’t find it. They should have told the idiot driver where to go.
Luckily, the hotel/guesthouse whatever was lovely. I was very concerned when we were walked down the dirty decrepit alleyway past buildings that were falling apart, but the hotel, the Zen Tea House Traveling With, was perfect. And yes, we booked it just because of that amazing name, so our gamble paid off. TRAVELING WITH. TRAVELING WITH WHAT, GUYS? WITH WHAAAAT? I love it. They were nice and apologetic for the hassle of getting there. We said we weren’t paying for the ride, obviously, and they were like okay sure, so that’s nice we didn’t have to fight for that. They also gave us a box of local candy as an apology later, a black sesame brittle thing which is accidentally vegan and quite good. So I forgive them, I just hate that driver.
And the Zen Teahouse Traveling With room was BEAUTIFUL. It was super cheap, like $25 maybe?? And it was nicer than places we’ve paid $150 for in Europe. Just a beautiful, and very zen, room for us to relax. And shower. Oh we showered so good. My hair is so clean. P.S., I need a g-d haircut when we get to a city with a salon with English speakers. It’s TOO MUCH and TOO BIG for this heat and humidity ahhhh.
Anyway, since we just had that night in Guilin, we didn’t have any touristing on our agenda. Guilin itself, at least the city center, is quite shitty, and the nice things to do are outside of it, like mountains and caves. And when you get there, you might as well be going to Yangshuo for the better, bigger, more famous and important version of those sights, which is what Yangshuo is for. And that’s where we were going the next day, for four full days and nights, so we just did literally nothing for our afternoon and evening in Guilin, and it was great. Just relaxed in that lovely room. I really liked that room. It was clean and simple and set up well for my preferred feng shuiness.
Well, of course we had to leave for food. We went to the vegetarian buffet (so many in this country! usually tied to Buddhist temples) at the Nengren Temple complex, about 45 minutes walk away, which was rough in this heat. We were deciding between that one, which opens at 5pm, and the supposedly all vegan one at Tian Fu Lou, which opens at 6pm, and since we were hungry and the Nengren was a tiny bit closer, we went to the earlier one. Guess what. The restaurant was open when we arrived at 5:15pm, but the buffet doesn’t start till 6pm. Thanks, everything on the internet! Ugh. I went to the supermarket and found lots of crackers that all had milk powder (literally everything in this country, from crackers to soy milk, has milk powder added, what gives, I think it’s a conspiracy) and then we just sat in the restaurant and waited. It was worth the wait though! Nothing outstanding among the dishes but solid good food. And lots of it. They had a custom noodle bowl station that I wish I tried but there was just so much.
ugh I wish I could have this now
We saw some RIDICULOUS advertisements and names for things on our wander.
gross
CHINA NO! NOT OKAY
Parts of Guilin were nice, like the view along the river. However, that view only improves as you travel down (up?) the Li river towards Yangshuo, a gorgeous boat ride we would be taking the next day.
i like water
So, at least I got a decent meal out of Guilin, along with a train ride from hell and a car ride from hell. And a perfectly lovely room at the Traveling With, of course. I was sad to leave that room but excited for our next stop, 4 nights in a place that was supposed to be 100x nicer. Spoiler, it wasn’t. But that’s for next time.
Nanxun, China: Little Known Water Town is an Absolute Must
After our time in Shanghai, we decided to make a stop at a nearby water town before heading to another big city, Hangzhou. Water towns are these tiny traditional villages on canals and what nots that are supposed to provide a charming break from big cities. Nanxun, though little known, is supposed to be the most beautiful water town. It’s touristed by Chinese domestic travelers, but not very visited by Westerners. In fact, it’s not even in our 1000-page guidebook. But the few things we saw online about it tempted us to give it a shot. And thank goodness we did, because Nanxun is the most beautiful village maybe in all of China. Now I haven’t seen all of China yet, but Nanxun is special enough that I would bet on it. If you can get there, you must. I really loved everything about it.
You’re gonna have to take my word for it, though. Not that I don’t have pictures – oh I took more pictures of this beautiful place than anywhere else – to prove it, but just that you can’t verify it with other non-Chinese travelers you know, because I actually don’t think more than five have gone. After our time in the big cities of Beijing and Shanghai, going straight to Nanxun was a rude awakening in terms of anyone knowing English. First of all, we didn’t see a white person from the time we left the Astor House Hotel lobby in Shanghai until we got to Hangzhou, the next destination. And I don’t think anyone in Nanxun had seen a white person in a very long time. In fact, our hotel in Nanxun only had one online review in English, and it was from people who went there in April and said the staff told them they were their very first Western guests. I imagine that means we were the second. How cool is that!
Our amazing hotel, Nanxun Xunyi Jingdian Hostel
When we got out of the car after the 2 1/2 hours or so drive from Shanghai (we just hired a car, it was easier than figuring out various buses can you imagine? outside cities?), we were surprised to see that the ‘hostel’ we booked on the main road, Nanxun Xunyi Jingdian Hostel, right outside the entry to the Old Town section, was a beautiful boutique hotel. They just don’t know what the word hostel means, I think, because this was a hotel if there ever was one. In fact, it was one of the most beautiful hotels I’ve seen. Everything was gorgeous, and the room was sublime. Spacious, airy, and comfortable while still looking like a traditional Chinese place, with a beautiful bathroom, giant clean lovely bed, strong air conditioning, two of the fluffiest robes you’ve ever seen in the closet, two water bottles, and room-specific wifi – can you believe it? So it was the strongest yet. And cheap enough that we assumed it was indeed a hostel, before we saw it. God I loved this place!
This shower was so beautiful! That tile and the sun oh man
yes I’m sharing a picture of robes I don’t care
So, the staff was wonderful – and they didn’t speak a word of English. We communicated back and forth solely via Google Translate, which, if you’ve ever used it, you know is never reliable and in Chinese is often hysterically mistaken. The owner’s phone kept saying ‘daughter-in-law’ to us. “The daughter-in-law is good and the right sort of money. You will find a good daughter-in-law there it’s close to the daughter-in-law and there will be a daughter-in-law.” We just nodded. Oh and the very first thing he had his phone say to us while checking in was, “Are you traveling here?” Um……sure???? Right? Isn’t that…obvious… It was so funny but everything was sorted and great. The fact that dealing with their friendly staff solely via phone apps went 100x more smoothly than dealing with English-speaking staff at the Astor House shows what a better place this was – and for a lot less money. God I loved this place.
Also, the info booklet in the room was amazing, and it did have English – though not very decipherable English. Yes I do want to continue to live! Tell me what to do! Also no wonder our credit card didn’t work – it was not any of those flowers or magical animals, but a regular credit card indeed. Shucks.
After we basked in the delight of a perfect hotel room, we meandered down the block to the Old Town entrance. So Nanxun is a regular small town with a main street and other streets, and the actual old traditional water town part is set back, preserved, and requires an entrance ticket. I was a little surprised and taken aback that the ‘town’ we came to see was ticketed, but it was only 100 yuan (like $15 maybe?) and doing this, I realized, helps preserve the beautiful area and keep it from being built up or modernized or ruined in some way. So, good idea, town.
The sights inside the water town part – like various houses, museums, gardens – close at 5pm, and it was already after 4pm when we arrived, so we weren’t able to do that then. But a kindly guide person told us that at 5pm, when the inside sights close, the grounds are still open and free! So we spent the evening walking around and taking most of our grounds pictures of all the canals and bridges and buildings and boats and it was so flipping beautiful. It’s so lovely
We also got a chance to scope out the things we really wanted to prioritize when we returned for the ticketed parts the next morning. Like the Lotus Garden, which had the biggest lotuses I’ve ever seen.
It was so cool! We also went to a few of the small museums the next day, most of which were fine if not as interesting as the scenery (and not in English). In one, a family asked Z for his picture and then to take pictures with him, the whole family. They didn’t even look at me. After they did their photoshoot, I heard the woman say about Z “Beautiful”. It was weird. But, anyway, they didn’t want my picture so f them.
Taking a boat ride seemed like the thing to do along the canals, Venezia-style, but it was so hot and sunny that sitting still with no shade and not going fast enough for wind seemed like a bad idea. I’m glad we decided to just walk around in the splendor and peace.
Well, the free evening time was peaceful. The next day was PACKED with busloads of Chinese tourists. I forgot that this country was so gigantic that more than a billion Chinese people would still be tourists here. Not all of them were there that day, probably just a million. No it wasn’t that bad, really. Nothing could ruin this little visit for us. It was so perfect.
Inside the old town, there are plenty of shops, selling all kinds of things like fruit teas, weird juices, nut brittles, and lots and lots of Chinese food (tip: it’s just called food here). There was an adorable cat themed cafe that had a real cat inside and an English menu of drinks. I had this delicious watermelon tea drink. We went there both days I think. We needed a lot of cold drinks in that heat.
We were lucky to get to see the old town all quiet and full of locals in the evening, and then boisterous and full of tourists the next. Also, we got to take tons of pictures in different light. Damn we took a lot. Can you blame us?
The best part of Nanxun, well, of course was how beautiful and charming it was. But the second best part was the signage. There are ample signs around the whole old town, and the English translations were INCREDIBLE. I would expect nothing less.
HEAR, HEAR
so….basil?
don’t spare any trash from what? FROM WHAT? also definitely civilzed behavior significantly!
just…everywhere?
WAIT FOR IT!!!!!!!!!!!
…i’ll try harder
I AM NOW THE LOCATION!
Well, that’s just like…your opinion, man…
I don’t even care about the ‘remarks’ spelling — ARE THESE BABIES THE VOLUNTEERS?????
I would love if a Chinese speaker could translate for us and tell us what they were going for. Can you imagine if these were actually accurate and the sign makers are simply hippies or high, maybe? We were smiling all day.
So, if you have time, a visit to Nanxun is essential. It’s important to see a traditional water town to have a well-rounded view of China. But also, it’s so freaking gorgeous, and, coming from Shanghai especially, seems very calm and relaxed. It was like we had chanced upon a secret they had kindly shared with us.
Out in the main part of town, things were more like a normal Chinese city, just small. Everyone stared at us, because we were the only non-Chinese people in town like I said, and probably the first in a while. No one spoke English. NO ONE. I’m not complaining, it’s just crazy to find a place where people don’t even know yes and no and good and stuff. It’s a good reminder not to get too complacent, considering how amazing it is that the common language between all travelers is English. (We would witness Japanese tourists speaking with Spanish tourists in Russia and you know what they speak? English. Sub in literally any other country in either of those three spots and the answer was always English. We are so lucky.) But we can’t rest on our imperialist laurels here! Well, everyone knows ‘hello’ at least. In fact, they shout ‘hello hello’ at us every second of the day, but that is standard practice in China. According to a book Z is reading, sometimes Chinese people refer to two white people as ‘two hellos’. It’s not a friendly hello when they shout it at us from the street. But aside from the shouting, people were friendly despite the language barrier. We had two hilarious interactions as we tried to get food and drink. First, we went into a small tea shop for our next required cold drink. They didn’t have English anywhere, and they didn’t know any. Well, the daughter of the owners knew a few words – literally like yes and no – so they kept hoping she would help, but she couldn’t. We used the app to try to read the menu and figured out it was fruit teas. But even with that, it was still so hard to order, but funny. Everyone was laughing, on both sides, as we tried to understand each other enough to proceed. We ordered a peach tea, which sounded good. Z pointed to one his phone said was peach and I held up one finger to signify we wanted one (to share, see if it’s good first!). Finally it seemed like they got it, and they went in the back to make them. Then they came out with two drinks – one with a half a giant peach in side, pushing out the sides of the plastic, and one yellow one. Apparently, when I held up the one finger, they assumed I was asking for ‘the first one’ in the list, which is a sort of lemonade tea. Oops! Well, better to have two to try! The lemon was way too sweet, but after we drank a little and filled the cup back up with water, it was great. But the peach one was amazing! So if you are in Nanxun go to this little shop and get the peach tea. We ate the peach too, of course.
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Even funnier was our attempt at finding dinner. Well, it wasn’t ha ha funny at first. We were hungry, and it was impossible to figure out what had vegetarian options when no one spoke English and there weren’t English menus. We didn’t expect those things, but we at least needed a picture menu so we could point to things we wanted. (I have so much newfound appreciation for places with picture menus. No more looking down on them.) But this was a small town and most of the restaurants had menus just scribbled on a board or printed up but without pictures. Finally we found one that had pictures on the wall, but not on a menu. So we gestured towards the wall and asked if we could point to what we wanted. They got it! It was okay! I said the words for ‘vegetarian food’ and pointed at a tofu dish and a few vegetables and he nodded when I asked to make sure ‘vegetarian’. There was no picture of rice but that one is easy enough to get across. We got food! It was good – except the eggplant dish was the Chinese version of vegetarian, meaning it had pork in it. Ughhhhh. More food just for Z. Luckily the greens and the tofu were good and uncontaminated.
our required menu format from now on
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But the best part of this meal was the conversation, again solely via Google Translate and the guy’s phone app for translating. Early, he very frustratedly tried to say something that we just DID NOT understand. A word apparently in English, but we didn’t get it. He went away, and came back 10 minutes later with a translated statement up on his phone screen “The USA has a place called Las Vegas.” Guy, you’re right and that was totally worth the trouble.
This happened a lot during the meal, with everyone looking at us and the owner-man coming up every few minutes with his phone queued up with some ridiculous statement. It was amazing. We tried so hard not to laugh every time. But the kicker, oh man, the kicker. At the end, I guess he felt comfortable enough finally in our conversationship to ask us about politics. And not just any politics. but the best political question ever framed. He came up to us, held out his phone, and it read, “Do you support the merchant, president tranp?” We still have bruises from how hard we were kicking each other, trying not to laugh but FAILING MISERABLY. Can you even? The misspelling! The comma! THE MERCHANT! We bring that up every day and still lose our shit laughing. Oh my god. I think we said no but the guy was probably super confused by how hard we were laughing while trying not to.
OH man, Nanxun. I love everything about you.
We were in Nanxun for only 24 hours, but it was one of our fullest visits. The sights were glorious, the hotel was perfection, and the interactions with people were beyond hilarious and adorable. And the signs. My god, the signs. I definitely wholeheartedly recommend a short jaunt here if you are planning to visit Shanghai (2.5 hour drive) or Hangzhou (2 hour drive) – where we headed next.
