4th and 5th July Hong Kong

We slept in till 8.30am after the late night. We had a pretty easy morning, checking out at 11.30am. Damien and Ursula came to pick us up with Harrison and Ellie. We drove under the harbour and parked under the huge building ifc Next we walked to Pier 5 passing all the helpers who were chatting and playing cards on their day off. We caught a ferry to Cheung Chan Island where we had a lovely seafood Chinese lunch by the water.

 

After lunch we set off to the beach for a swim. We hired a beach umbrella as it was so hot we thought we would melt if we sat out in the sun. Damien hired a row boat for Harrison and Ellie and they rowed out to the pontoon while Damien and David swam out. We had great views of Hong Kong island in the background and the fishing boats that looked like insects.

We headed back to the ferry around 5.30pm and had a good trip back to Hong Kong. It was getting late so we decided to get dinner in at Soho at a place called Beer and Burgers. It was quite funny as they were in the process of having their liquor licence renewed and they were unable to serve any alcohol. It ended up being No beer and burgers. The drive back to Damien and Ursula's house was very scenic, even in the dark. We traveled over and passed a few bridges that looked quite spectacular all lit up.

5th of July

We had another relaxing morning as we had organised with Harrison to show us how to get to Ngong Ping 360 cable car and the Giant Buddha. The cable car is 5.7km long and turns two corners. The top of the mountain was covered in mist as we approached the summit and then the giant Buddha appeared. It was an amazing site.

We had lunch at the top of the mountain and then climbed the steps up to walk around the Giant Buddha.

We then visited the Po Lin Monastery before catching the cable car back down and doing some shopping at Tung Chung Outlet shopping centre. We made it back to Damien and Ursula's and had a lovely dinner with Harrison as Damien and Ursula were playing in their netball semi finals and Ellie was having a sleep over at a friends house.

3rd of July Hong Kong

We met the group for our farewell breakfast across the road from the hotel. Anu had miss read her itinerary and had to leave at 8am so she missed the breakfast. We had dim sum and congee, it was all very delicious. We said goodbye to everyone and were on our own once more. We decided to check out Hong Kong Island so we caught the MTR from Jordan station to Central then jumped aboard a double decker tram to do a walking tour of old Hong Kong.

The first stop was the dried seafood shops and then on past the Chinese medicine wholesalers on our way to western market, an old shopping centre.

Next we passed the ginseng root sellers and other traditional shops before stopping at possession street, where the first British flag was planted in 1841. We then walked up past two small temples then through Cat Street markets where they sell Chinese bric-a-brac. We climbed up Ladder Street to Man Mo Temple and ended at Man Wa Lane where traditional seals are made.

We then caught a tram to Bank Street and walked up to Hong Kong Park where we managed to get wi-fi so David called his Mum and Catriona rang Chris and her Mum.

We then headed to the Victoria Peak tram. There was a huge queue for the tram and we waited about 30 minutes to get on. It was very steep and the views were great.

 

At the top we had fantastic views of Hong Kong, Kowloon and Victoria Harbour.

We had a late lunch at Bubba Gumps shrimp co. and headed back down the going backward. We raced back to the hotel for a quick shower and a change of clothes then caught the MTR back to Central to meet Damien and Ursula. They took us to Soho for a drink then we walked to a Mexican restaurant around the corner. Afterward we went for a walk around Soho and finished in a street of bars with hundreds of others watching the world cup.

2nd July Hong Kong

We woke at around 8am and Catriona found her neck pillow in a little QANTAS purse had been stolen. The thief would have been surprised when they opened it up and found it only had a neck pillow and used ear plugs in it.  We arrived in Shenzhen at 10am and had to go through the Chinese boarding crossing and customs and then through into Hong Kong where we caught the metro into Kowloon. We had to hop into taxis to get to the hotel where we checked in and had showers before meeting for our orientation walk. After the orientation Olivia, Steph and Lisa set off with us down Nathan Rd, one of the main streets, looking for a place to have lunch. We finally ended up at a burger place in one of the big shopping centres. We continued down the road to Salisbury gardens with Olivia and walked the avenue of stars with its fantastic view over Victoria Harbour.

We then walked back through town up Chatham Rd South, then back to the hotel for a bit of a rest. At 7.30pm we all met up for the last time and walked down Kowloon Park Drive to see the 8pm light show, "Symphony of Lights". We passed some huge shopping centres and expensive designer clothes and jewelry shops. The light show was technically amazing being in tune with the music from dozens of buildings- it was a bit dull and the music was outdated and corny, however we were still glad we saw it.

After the show we split up again and set off to the Temple street markets with Olivia and Lisa. We didn't buy anything as we were too tired, but it was good to have a look.

28th to 1st Yichang and Yangshuo

We had a relaxing start to the day as we didn't have to check out until 11.30am and we only had to go to the supermarket to buy food for our train journey. We headed off to the train station where Yisha helped us to buy some lunch before boarding our train to Yangshuo. We were in a soft sleeper for this journey, 4 share with a lockable door. The only thing was that this train was the lowest class train you can get. We shared a dirty cabin with Annie and Pam, Catriona's sheets were dirty and had chunks of food still on them. Thank goodness we had our silk inner sheets to sleep in. We braved the dining car for dinner and it was not too bad.

We played cards to pass the time and watched the lovely riverside scenery. We ended up going to bed at 9pm as we were to be woken at 4.30am. It was a tough sleep as the train was very jerky and had many stops. We were glad to get off.

29th We had a 3 hour bus ride on very rough roads to get to Yangshou and we passed through beautiful countryside There were many farms and small towns along the route and we got our first look at the limestone karsts that make this region famous. It reminded many of us of Vietnam and Thailand. We arrived in Yangshuo and checked into our hotel, had showers and after meeting everyone in the lobby, set off for brunch. Yisha gave us an orientation walk around the area and we had free time until 2pm when we met up again for our cruise down the Li river.

We had a 40 minute drive to where we had our cruise. The place where we were on the river is on the 20 Yuan note. We were split into two groups for our "bamboo" raft cruise. We were on a raft with Anu and Jess and Olivia, Lisa, Steph, Annie and Pam were on the other raft. The scenery was magnificent and much less "mist" than we have encountered so far on our journey.

In the evening 7 of us had dinner together before doing a bit of shopping in the markets. Catriona bought a scarf and two pairs of zip off travel pants and David bought a pair of zip off travel pants and a zip off sleeve travel shirt. The Karsts were lit up for the night and looked very pretty.

 

30th We had a local breakfast of noodles with meat and a juice for just 10 Yuan ($2). After breakfast we set off for our ride around the countryside. The bikes we had were in good condition and we were able to adjust the seat posts so they were comfortable to ride. We set off traveling down the busy local street then turned off to a minor road before taking a small country lane through pretty farm land with a spectacular backdrop of the limestone karsts. It was very hot and humid, but while we were riding it was not too bad.

We passed small streams and through villages on our way to Moon Hill. Most of the group did the half hour walk to the top. We were followed to the top by a little lady who carried a box of cold drinks. She told us she was 69 and had 6 children. When we made it to the top she was saying how hot it was and proceeded to fan us. We felt sorry for her so bought a can of coke. The view from the top was lovely.

After our walk we rode to our guides house for lunch. It was great food, we had six dishes which her husband cooked for us. After lunch we had a walk around her village and she showed us all her crops. She grows most of the food that they eat. She picked us a piece of a rice plant and showed us where the rice comes from which was very interesting and something a few of us did not know.

 

We headed back to the hotel and had showers then met up for a couple of cocktails before setting off to the light show. The light show was very good and had been choreographed by the guy who did the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony. It was on a grand scale with many performers.

After the show we headed off to a bar for some more cocktails and some dinner for our last night with Annie and Pam as they stayed in Yangshuo to do a cooking course with Intrepid.

1st This morning everyone apart from Annie and Pam set off for a cooking class. Our first stop was the local market to see all the types of vegetables we would be using in our class. There were a few interesting things such as live eels and dog.

We cooked 5 dishes in our cooking class, Egg wrapped dumplings, steamed chicken with mushrooms, Eggplant Yangshuo style, Stir fried pork with vegetables and Oyster sauce and Green vegetables with garlic. We had fun cooking and it was all very good.

After the cooking course we headed back to the hotel and Catriona went shopping with Steph, Jess and Anu. We had a 1 1/2 hour bus ride to Guilin for our last overnight train trip to Shenzhen. We had hard sleepers again with 6 to a compartment with no doors. It was a good trip and we managed to get a good sleep.

24th to 27th Chongquing and Yangzi cruise

It rained quite heavily overnight and was still raining in the morning. We had another breakfast of egg sandwiches and a banana before setting off to catch the bus. We had a wet walk through the monastery and a big golf cart picked us up and took us to the point where a big coach picked us up for our 8 hour trip to Chongqing, the departure point for our 3 gorges cruise on the Yangzi river. We only had two stops along the way. The first stop was just a toilet stop and it was the worst toilet I have been to. We joked around in Ephesis saying how funny it was that the Romans sat around together on the toilet and had our photos taken with everyone sitting on the toilet. Well the toilets here were just 3 holes in the concrete floor and you had to take your turn squatting next to someone. One woman didn't even wait for a hole to be vacant and just squatted on the floor in the corner! Our tour leader told us this was not the worst toilet she had seen as there were ones not even she could go to! The second stop was for lunch and the toilets here were much better. Unfortunately David left his drink bottle and holder we bought in Bolivia behind.

It rained very heavily for most of the trip. The roads were very bad, full of potholes probably due to the heavy rain they have been having for so long. When we were just outside Chongquing we got stuck in a huge traffic jam. We found out it was caused by road works with only one lane in each direction. Chongquing is a huge city and ranks as one of the top 4 most populated cities in China. The coach dropped us off at the railway station where we transferred to a minibus which took us to the harbour for our first view of the Yangzi river, where we checked on to the boat before setting off to the supermarket and to buy some dinner.

We were back on the boat by 8pm and it departed at 9pm. The light show from the city was amazing.

25th we had a 6.50am wake up to music over the loud speaker, ready for our buffet breakfast at 7.10am. After breakfast we walked ashore up many steps for a visit to Fengdu 'Ghost City'. We caught a chairlift to half way up the mountain to the first temple.

Our guide told us many stories about the place which had a Buddhist temple a Taoist Temple and temples for the 'Ghost worshipers'! The place was set up for tourists and there were no monks in any of the temples, just stalls trying to sell you things. The temples were very colourful and there were quite a few statues of underworld figures. We also had to cross the centre bridge in 9 steps holding the hand of our partner if we wanted to be a couple in the next life, which we did.

After our excursion we headed back to the boat, Catriona bought a lovely fan for around $4. The rest of the day was spent watching a DVD of Anna and the king and being taught and playing Mahjong. Some of the other passengers were very interested in our game and came up to help us to play.

We passed many large towns and cities along the Yangzi, most seemed to have a great deal of construction going on. There were also many bridges over the river and all of them were huge.

We had the Captain's welcome dinner at 6.30pm and afterwards we watched the Galaxy No. 1 cruise show. Galaxy No. 1 being our boat. It was a very ordinary show with some of the crew performing and passengers doing karaoke. One of the main observations of the day cruising down the Yangzi is that the visibility is very poor due to the pollution. Our cruise director, like our group leader tried to tell us that it is just mist. We know the mist would be a contributing factor but we wonder if they really realize the extent of the pollution and are just trying to cover it up! At least the pollution does not sting your eyes and throat like it does in Santiago.

26th Today we had a sleep in until 7.15 as breakfast was not until 7.40am. We were called up to the top deck at around 9.20am to view the Qutang Gorge. It is the picture on the 10 Yuan note, so David took a photo of Catriona holding a 10 Yuan note.

 

It was quite a spectacular sight with its rugged cliffs and high peaks. As you can see from the photos it was still "Misty" so we couldn't get any clear photos.

Later on we went back up to he top deck as we passed through Wu Gorge and saw more of the amazing scenery. All the way you could see the white mark showing the winter water level of 175m above sea level. After lunch we stopped and transferred to a smaller boat for a trip up Shennong Stream. It isn't a stream anymore because of the flooding of the Yangzi and like many of the other places the towns had to be moved to higher ground. We passed through 3 little gorges and they were beautiful, the water and air were much clearer. We transferred to small wooden boats where the boat men rowed us around 3km up stream. It was a peaceful and relaxing trip an our local guide and the captain of our boat sang us some local songs.

 

The rest of the day we just relaxed on the boat. Around midnight we headed back up to the top deck to watch the boat pass through the first locks of the 3 gorges dam. Because of the water level we were able to sail straight into the 2nd lock. There were 6 other tourist boats in there with us when they closed the doors. It was quite creepy at first. Once the doors were closed we started to descend quite rapidly, around 20 meters. It was very interesting.

In the morning we went on a tour of the 3 gorges dam project. It was very interesting. Our first stop was the Dam wall where our guide explained to us all about the dam and showed us where they are building the ship elevator. It takes 3 hours to pass through the locks but with the ship elevator smaller boats will be able to pass in 40 minutes.

Back on the boat it was another two hours till we reached our disembarkation point at Yichang. We passed one more gorge before the end of the cruise It was full of cute little villages and pagodas on top of the peaks.

We had a short bus ride into the city where we checked into our hotel for our overnight stay. We spent the afternoon in our room uploading photos onto flickr and updating the blog as we had been without internet access for over a week. Yisha took us out for a nice local dinner and on the way back to the hotel we had to stop and take this photo of washing out to dry.

Olivia, Steph, and Jess watched the Germany vs England world cup match with us in Yisha's room before we all went to bed.