china china china

shenzhen

what a difference a day makes ! one day we are sweltering under thai skies and the next day we are battling the bitter chill of china ! we departed bangkok for shenzhen. our flight landed on time or so we think, we don't hardly even look at our details anymore ! we spent less than 24 hours here, it was really jus a stopover. it was the cheapest flight we could get into china and we managed to get a good deal by air to beijing for the following day so it all seemed pretty sweet ! we never imagined just how difficult it would be to communicate with people in china !! i don't know why but we jus seemed to think they would all have a few english words, not the case !! anyway we finally got to our previously booked hotel. for 21 euro a night we didn't expect much ... a bed a least though !! we had so much bother when we were at reception. we had a booking confirmation in english which the receptionist didn't understand. after more than half an hour of using an english/ chinese translator and drawing picutures of 3 beds in a square box we were brought to a room, not any old room but the hotel suite !!

beijing

we hitched a lift to the airport the following morning for our beijing bound flight. we got picked up by this kind of motorized bike converted into a mini tuc tuc thing ! it was definitely only made for one passenger but we managed to squeeze 3 of us and 3 backpacks in and shook on a fare of 50p ! the little driver blasted through the streets and the cutting chill in the air until we almost reached the airport and he tossed us out .. a few hours later we were in beijing and yes more confusion, complications and huge language barriers. tom tried to resort to body languge which was jus hilarious. it doesn't work in china, they all thought he was crazy or something trying 'actions over words' !! when we arrived at our city centre hostel tom sighed heavily before he even set foot inside, simply because all you could see was this tiny little building situated right on the back corner of the most amazing enormous marriott hotel. we forgot about the hotel as soon as we got into the 'happy house hostel' ... the full on heating was a great distraction. then they took us to our room which was down a corridor, up a stairs, down another corridor ... it was looking promising until they took us through a door outside into this mini portacabin, a tiny little freezing room with 2 bunk beds squashed in. there was a little heater which we got going and in the meantime we went out in search of a nice chinese curry. we didn't manage to find one but did settle into a local food place for a few hours. we tried to venture around the streets of beijing that night but the cold jus forced us back indoors. we returned to the happy house 'happy how' and all squeezed up onto the top bunks (bottom half of the room was feckin cold, floors especially freezing), huddled together and managed a great nights sleep.

the next few days were spent adjusting to this cold weather and life in china in general. we spent hours figuring out the local bus service and even mastered the beijing underground. we walked the streets too taking in the famous sights, some more impressive than others. the forbidden city, tiananmen square and great wall of china were top of our list. our time at the forbidden city & tiananmen was really restricted by the smog and the weather. the smog been so thick that the sights jus looked a bit dull and the weather well i'll say no more. now us 3 still haven't bought a coat between us so you might have no sympathy for us but we prefer to spend any spare money on a few little treats and not practical things like coats !!!! luckily the day we choose to go to the great wall turned out to be perfect. at first when we climbed onto the bus at 6am i thought we were in for a rough day, our eyeballs were almost frozen in their sockets and everyone on the bus except us had big puffball jackets on ! as it was 3 hours drive away from beijing the sun was able to shine through, although not strong enough to melt the frozen lakes and rivers it did give us a helping hand and allow us to thaw out a little and really enjoy our time on the great wall. tom picked the jinshanling/simatai part of the wall to visit as it was less touristy and you could walk a 10km section. it turned out to be soooo amazing, hardly a tourist in sight, so peaceful, clearish skies and stunning scenery. we jus didn't want it to end ... well cathy might disagree with that bit, the steps on the final climb we're becoming tough on the legs but she pushed on through her pain ! all the effort will of course stand to her when she toughs out the inca trail in july ....

one night at the marriott

on our second last day in beijing tom decided that he couldn't walk past the marriott into the happy house once more without jus checking the price. when the guy said he would give us a deluxe room for 80 pound a night tom instantly announced he was treating his 2 girls to a night here ! seriously i know he should have jus bought us 3 coats but this was way better ... cathy and myself were so hyper the next morning when we arrived there. it jus was so wrong ... this bell boy wheeling 3 torn and dirty backpacks to this deluxe room ! i couldn't keep a straight face and cathy had the biggest smile ever. the room was easily the best best best of the best .. the bathroom even had remote control blinds so you could watch the plasma tv from there .. we spent the evening and morning time in the olympic size heated swimming pool which on floor 3 gave us a great view of the chinese new year fireworks exploding in the sky, which might i add overlooked the happy house ha ha. the rest of the time we were all decked out in our marriott gowns eating take away pizza, drinking some local red wine and watching the australian open on tv ! the icing on the cake was when we asked for a late check out and they let us stay until 2pm for free ... after all the places we have been, historical places we have visited and stunning scenery we has viewed cathy declared this was the best day of her travels !!!!!!! we left the hotel with a bag load of luxury goodies from the room: shampoo, conditioner, body cream, soap and toilet roll ha ha true backpackers i hear you say !! so this almost ended our time in beijing, we had jus one incomplete task and that was to have dinner at the peking roast duck restaurant, we went, we had, we loved !

xian & chengdu

an overnight train the night after the marriott was a bit of a come down but as it happened we couldn't get a hard sleeper so had to pay a bit more for a soft sleeper which was comfy in a train sleeping way. it was glamarous compared to the sleeper trains in thailand but also about 4 times the price so i guess it's the true old saying 'you get what you pay for'. xian was a pretty cool city, we totally enjoyed our time here except the smog was absolutely chronic, the worst we've seen in china. we buzzeed about this city for only 2 days taking in it's most famous sight, the terra-cotta warriors. some people might say this is the most amazing thing, others call it the 8th wonder of the world but to be honest i thought it was overrated and thats me being nice. our opinions are divided thou ... tom was impressed and cathy was totally unimpressed, i was somewhere in the middle ! we moved on from xian by train to chengdu where we are today. we again took a sleeper train, the journey was 18 hours ... unfortunately we couldn't get a sleeper cabin on the train so we had to take a seat. all the soft seats were also sold out as it is currently the spring festival and the the chinese new year celebrations so we had only one option ... a hard seat. at first we thought 'no fecking way' and then we jus took the good with the bad and bought the ticket ... the good being the price ! the hard seat cost us 6 euro each, a sleeper about 10 times that price !! all i can say is we arrived in chengdu in one piece but am not sure if we would go through the same 18 hours again. it really was an eye opener and an endurance test. i somehow managed about 5 hours sleep sitting upright in this sleepy dirty smokey hard seated train carriage but tom & cats weren't so lucky ... they didn't get a wink of sleep.

today we had another amazing day to add to all our other amazing days over the last 4and a half months. we went to see the chinese panda bears. i don't think my words can justify this so i'll let the pictures tell their own story. tom is currently trying to get another web album together for you all to see ... so where to from here ?? well tomorrow we leave here for tibet. to enter tibet you need a permit which we have managed to get but you can't travel through tibet as an independent travellers due to restrictions and laws in this part of the world. luckily we met 2 canadian girls 'amanda & lane' at the great wall of china who are travelling in the same direction as us and we have teamed together to form a group. we got in touch with a local guy in tibet who sorted out our permits. the same guy is going to take us on a nine day tour in a 4x4 which will finally end at the nepalese border taking in the original mount everest base camp in tibet along the way. we leave tomorrow morning by air which is the only disappointing thing about our plans. we should be disappointed because the air ticket is three times the price of the train ticket but our real disappointment lies in the fact that the 5 of us had high hopes of travelling to the 'rooftop of the world'. the train line which opened in 2006 goes to an altitude higher than 5000m along the way with every passenger supplied with their own oxygen, a spectacular journey i can only imagine. but the train is fully booked for the next 10 days and waiting here until then is not an option so we reluctantly choose to fly. the bus won't allow foreigners anymore for insurance reasons ... anyway tomorrow we will land in the city of lhasa, 3700m above sea level with high hopes that none of us has to endure altitude sickness and we can embark on our nine day once in a life time trip through tibet ...

as always the photo albums are on the top right, see china's latest pic's ... tlc x

cathy here for a few extra words !!!!!!!!

yea okay so ...... erm ...... i miss thailand ! :( best country ever ! but i do seem to love every country in asia so yea ! like at the moment i tink china is deadly !:) ...... even though its cold !!! and the language barrier is crazy but it's still class ... yea ... i can't believe we stayed in the ** MARRIOTT ** in beijing ! like oh my god it was the most AMAZING thing ever ! i can't believe we left ! but sure what can ya do ... yea ... erm i don't know what else to say ... the terracotta warriors are boring as !!! like what the hell you don't get to see any in pit 2 and you read about all the super detail but like they ain't that great. but i suppose there was alot of them and they were built 2000 years ago or whateva but they're nothing compared to the great wall ! which is like actually great ! lol so cool ! a lot of bloody hills thou !! but good ! i would totally go again ! yea ! asia rocks ! woohoo 'oh shea' i don't wanna leave it ! yea so bring on tibet and all it's deadly (but like literally deadly) high altitudes !!! slan !!! :) :)