Dueling Backpacks

Day 331 (May 25, 2019) – Beijing, China Beijing is enormous. I feel like we only ever saw a tiny section of the city during our time there. It was also noticeably more expensive than other places we had been in China and, to our surprise, much hotter. We were staying in a hotel near the drum and bell towers, which are just north of the Forbidden City. Around the neighborhood were many small residential areas with narrow, interconnecting alleys called hutongs. Most of the neighborhoods were quite historical, with some houses and courtyards being hundreds of years old.

Day 326 (May 20, 2019) - Pingyao, Shanxi Province, China Pingyao, located between Xi’an and Beijing, is claimed to be one of the best-preserved ancient cities in China. Because of this distinction we had high hopes for our visit, but unfortunately we left feeling a bit unimpressed. We should have known better by now. Anything with that kind of touristic honor was going to be crowded and over visited.

Day 323 (May 17, 2019) – Xi’an, Shaanxi Province, China As soon as we arrived in Xi’an it felt like we were back on China’s main tourist trail. During the last week or so, we could have counted on a single hand the number of westerners we saw. Now in Xi’an, it was like we couldn’t get away from everyone. International tourists, like us, stick out like sore thumbs and tend to congregate at the same restaurants, bars, and tourist sites. But being on the tourist trail has its conveniences. We never had an issue finding English menus and the woman running our accommodation spoke perfectly to us and was able to give us all sorts of advice about the city. She even directed us to an affordable Belgian beer bar where we were able to get the fullest bodied beers we had had in over a month.  

Day 319 (May 13, 2019) – Dunhuang, Gansu Province, China We had an action-packed trip to Dunhuang. We were there for three nights, but we wished we had stayed longer. We arrived feeling exhausted after getting up at two in the morning to catch our train from Jiayuguan City . After checking into our hotel, we went out to find a strong cup of coffee and a bite to eat. Our first day in Dunhang was just an organizational day for us. We signed up for an all-day tour to the desert for next day and then bought tickets to visit the Mogao Caves for the day after that. We had to hike halfway across town to buy the tickets and it seemed like before we knew it the day was over. 

Day 316 (May 10, 2019) – Jiayuguan, Gansu Province, China Jiayuguan was a short stop for us but it was full of surprises. We were headed there to see the western end of China's Great Wall and Jiayuguan Fort. Jiayuguan Fort used to mark the edge of China’s known land. When people were banished from the kingdom they were brought to the fort and shoved out the western gate, leaving them to figure things out for themselves in the desert.

Day 314 (May 8, 2019) – Lanzhou, Gansu Province, China We had one of our most memorable welcomes when we arrived at our Lanzhou hotel. A very professional woman greeted us and checked us in. She didn’t speak English, but she was lightning fast at typing messages onto her phone, which she then had speak to us in her translation app’s robotic English voice. After getting all our information and scanning our passports and visas her last message ended with something like, “we apologize for not speaking English well, so we can use this app to communicate, but here are some tomatoes.” Tomatoes? The app had been doing a very good job until it started talking about tomatoes. But then as we looked up at her, slightly confused but thankful for her kind welcome, she presented us each with a box of tomatoes. So, it turned out the app wasn’t mistaken. She was actually giving us tomatoes. We never would have expected that one.

Day 311 (May 5, 2019) – Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China Chengdu is famous for two things: Sichuan hot pot and giant pandas. Of course, there is much more than that to do in the city, but those two items were on our Chengdu bucket list.

Day 306 (April 30, 2019) – Lijiang, Yunnan Province, China Lijiang was a few hours by train further into Yunnan Province from Dali. We were on a slow train, but it made it somewhat easier to see the scenery pass by as we climbed the mountains above Erhai Lake. We had arranged for our hotel to pick us up from the train station on our arrival because we heard that the Lijiang Old Town was notoriously easy to get lost in. We were glad we decided to do that.

Day 302 (April 26, 2019) – Dali, Yunnan Province, China Dali was full of surprises. Some good and others not so good. There are actually two places called Dali. The modern part of Dali is called Dali City and the more historic part of town is called Dali Old Town (or sometimes Dali Ancient City). They are a good distance apart from one another but as a tourist almost everyone arrives by train in Dali City and then heads over to Dali Old Town.

Day 298 (April 22, 2019) - Kunming, Yunnan Province, China Kunming was our first stop on our tour of Yunnan Province. Kunming is quite a far distance from Yangshuo. We started off on a slow train from Yangshuo to the larger city of Guilin, where we changed to a high-speed train to take us the six or so hours west to Kunming.

Day 295 (April 18, 2019) – Yangshuo, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, China Our high-speed train from Guangzhou took us out of the flatlands of the Pearl River Delta and into China’s expansive karst landscape. Although the name for these rock formations, karst towers, may be unfamiliar, the sight of them is immediately recognizable and iconic of China. The town of Yangshuo sits along a bend of the Li River and is surrounded by these enormous rock tower formations. It was a beautiful sight and we were going to spend a few days getting more acquainted with the landscape.

Day 291 (April 15, 2019) – Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, China Guangzhou was our first destination in mainland China. I admit that we were feeling a bit nervous. We didn’t know what to expect. We were afraid that we wouldn’t be able to communicate. The five phrases we picked up were not going to help us order food or train tickets. We also knew that we were entering China’s Great Firewall, their massive effort at internet censorship. Not being able to access Facebook or Instagram was not our concern. We were more concerned with our ability to access the internet for maps and navigation, hotel and travel websites, and translation apps. Usually, most fears never come true, but our fears of travelling in China did. But our fears were only challenges and we got better at navigating them over time. Guangzhou, however, was our first stop and it was trial by fire.

Day 286 (April 10, 2019) – Hong Kong, China I was very excited when our plane landed in Hong Kong. We had been in Thailand and Malaysia for nearly two months and I was ready for a change. Hong Kong certainly provided that. Compared to Thailand, Hong Kong felt modern, sleek, and clean. Exiting the airport, we hopped on a bus that took us downtown. The bus was extremely well signed, quite comfortable (also nearly empty), and had flat screen displays showing all the stops, the time, and our progress along the route. This was definitely not Thailand. You would never find this level of organization there.