20th - 25th June 2012
So we had to take 2 flights to travel the small distance Beijing and Xi'an as nothing is straight forward in this country!! As is customary by now on Chinese flights we got fed on both flights even though we only left Beijing at 7.30am and arrived in Xi'an at 12pm so relatively short timeframe! Again couldn't eat what we were given though!! During the break between flights I witnessed another typical chinese incident which shows how different we are - the fact that it was ok for a woman to bring her daughter 12 month old daughter into the bathroom and let her wee into the sink while holding a clean nappy is beyond my comprehension!!
Anyways we arrived at our hostel and were pleasantly surprised, even Ronan was impressed! It had a great atmosphere, full of other tourists, good bar and really clean & comfortable!
So hard to find a nice restaurant in this city, we walked around for ages and eventually found a place that looked half normal although they gave us the menus on iPads but it was the same story as before with people standing over us, chopsticks and feeling self conscious!!
So far the hostel was the only redeeming feature of this city as it was good fun and the bar had a great atmosphere so ended up having another few mojitos back there!
The following day we were heading out to the Terracotta Warriors, another chinese 'unmissable' site. We used public transport again (no didn't learn our lesson from the stress of doing the Great Wall!). Neither of us very impressed, definitely seemed like a tourist ploy to get money in especially considering the entrance fee of 150yuan/€19 price. To put this in perspective the Taj cost €7.50, the Great Wall €5.60 and a couple of other things we did that cost €5 we considered expensive! Probably kinda hard for you to believe back home in Ireland but we are now in the travelling mentality and our hostels aren't costing 150yuan a night!!! Anyways it's all ok as Ronan pulled out his Public Services Card and passed it off as student id (yes as a 31 year old married man with an ever-growing forehead) and got us both in for half price!!!! So the stressful journey back to the city started with two extremely underwhelmed people wondering what all the fuss was about!!
That evening we walked for an hour and half looking for somewhere to eat dinner before we ended up in Pizza Hut, I kid you not the options were they limited and to be completely honest I couldn't listen to my whining anymore than Ronan could stand to listen to it!! We can laugh about it now though! Thank god for live music and the bit of craic back in the hostel though! We have blessed this day The Worst Day of the Honeymoon!!! Rang my sister for her birthday so that cheered me up, happy birthday again Lorraine xxxx
The following day, 22nd June, we had to check out of our hostel as we were leaving on a 16 hour train to Chengdu later that evening. We decided to rent bikes and cycle the city wall for the afternoon. It was so much fun and definitely my favourite day in China so far! The entrance fee to the wall and the bikes were fixed price so at least there was no negotiating or getting ripped off. It was so much fun, we were faffing about taking breaks, taking photos, using the camcorder to our hearts content until we realised we were over an hour in and only half way around our 14km circuit so had to fairly belt it around the last 7km to get the bikes back in time (for fear of a 10 yuan penalty - I know it's only €1.24 but we are in budget travel mode) still so much fun!!
We then headed back to the hostel and got showered (the beauty of a hostel even though we were checked out) and prepared for our mammoth train journey.
It left Xi'an at 8pm so between reading and writing in my travel journal the time passed really quickly. We then slept from 12am until 9am which was really good going and when we woke up we only had 3 hours until we landed in Chengdu. We had hoped to be sharing a berth with other travellers but unfortunately it was not to be, we were with locals which included a kid! We did not sign up for the kid! Four bodies is a tight enough squeeze never mind a fifth who needed to be entertained and fed by sucking on slimy, dehydrated meat. Yum! Oh and we went up the chatting to a couple from Florida and when we came back they had robbed my bed. Boo to the chinese!
So anyways we arrived in Chengdu on Saturday 23rd, perfectly refreshed after a good sleep on the train, to much lower temperatures than we have experienced so far - think it was around 30 degrees so more than manageable! As soon as we arrived and got showered we headed out in search of an Irish bar so Ronan could watch the Ireland v New Zealand rugby match so had a lovely afternoon/evening eating and drinking even though the match was a disgrace! There are actually so many Irish ex-pats in Chengdu, it's surprising! What was not surprising was that they spent all Saturday afternoon in the pub no more than ourselves!
The following day we went to the panda reserve. Having learnt from previous experience we decided to bite the bullet and go as a tour with our hostel rather than public transport! So we had an amazing morning, loved the pandas!! My new favourite thing in China, I could have spent all day there and 3 hours was just not enough!
Myself and Ronan have been having a wee domestic for the last few days before going to the pandas - so holding a panda is a once in a lifetime experience and cost a lot of money so I wasn't sure about doing it. Ronan reckons he should be allowed to do something that is a once in a lifetime experience and costs a lot of money and what he has chosen is of course to do a bungee jump! I don't want him to do it BUT I got a little carried away when I saw the pandas and kinda forgot what the trade-off was....so in effect I said yes to Ronan doing the bungee by bending and holding a panda (which was awesome may I add!)....anyways watch this space I may talk him around yet! My argument is he is now a married man with responsibilities and should act accordingly!! Why can't he pick a once in a lifetime experience which involves standing on the ground?!
The tour from our hostel had 5 other people on it and we ended up spending the full day with an English couple we met (hi David and Becky!). They showed us the true backpacker style of getting a tasty lunch for €1 and an amazing dinner for €2! Fun times!
We decided to completely chill on our last day in Chengdu cos we have been rushing around doing stuff for weeks with no break and haven't stayed anywhere for more than 2 nights since Jaipur at the start so it was nice to have nothing to do and nowhere to be!
So leaving for Hong Kong early on Tuesday 26th and I'm not sorry although Chengdu has been the nicest Chinese city and the people not as bad. Also the heat wave finally broke so temperatures down to 23 degrees and it's even rained!! Bye bye China, can't see us being back!
So we had to take 2 flights to travel the small distance Beijing and Xi'an as nothing is straight forward in this country!! As is customary by now on Chinese flights we got fed on both flights even though we only left Beijing at 7.30am and arrived in Xi'an at 12pm so relatively short timeframe! Again couldn't eat what we were given though!! During the break between flights I witnessed another typical chinese incident which shows how different we are - the fact that it was ok for a woman to bring her daughter 12 month old daughter into the bathroom and let her wee into the sink while holding a clean nappy is beyond my comprehension!!
Anyways we arrived at our hostel and were pleasantly surprised, even Ronan was impressed! It had a great atmosphere, full of other tourists, good bar and really clean & comfortable!
So hard to find a nice restaurant in this city, we walked around for ages and eventually found a place that looked half normal although they gave us the menus on iPads but it was the same story as before with people standing over us, chopsticks and feeling self conscious!!
So far the hostel was the only redeeming feature of this city as it was good fun and the bar had a great atmosphere so ended up having another few mojitos back there!
The following day we were heading out to the Terracotta Warriors, another chinese 'unmissable' site. We used public transport again (no didn't learn our lesson from the stress of doing the Great Wall!). Neither of us very impressed, definitely seemed like a tourist ploy to get money in especially considering the entrance fee of 150yuan/€19 price. To put this in perspective the Taj cost €7.50, the Great Wall €5.60 and a couple of other things we did that cost €5 we considered expensive! Probably kinda hard for you to believe back home in Ireland but we are now in the travelling mentality and our hostels aren't costing 150yuan a night!!! Anyways it's all ok as Ronan pulled out his Public Services Card and passed it off as student id (yes as a 31 year old married man with an ever-growing forehead) and got us both in for half price!!!! So the stressful journey back to the city started with two extremely underwhelmed people wondering what all the fuss was about!!
That evening we walked for an hour and half looking for somewhere to eat dinner before we ended up in Pizza Hut, I kid you not the options were they limited and to be completely honest I couldn't listen to my whining anymore than Ronan could stand to listen to it!! We can laugh about it now though! Thank god for live music and the bit of craic back in the hostel though! We have blessed this day The Worst Day of the Honeymoon!!! Rang my sister for her birthday so that cheered me up, happy birthday again Lorraine xxxx
The following day, 22nd June, we had to check out of our hostel as we were leaving on a 16 hour train to Chengdu later that evening. We decided to rent bikes and cycle the city wall for the afternoon. It was so much fun and definitely my favourite day in China so far! The entrance fee to the wall and the bikes were fixed price so at least there was no negotiating or getting ripped off. It was so much fun, we were faffing about taking breaks, taking photos, using the camcorder to our hearts content until we realised we were over an hour in and only half way around our 14km circuit so had to fairly belt it around the last 7km to get the bikes back in time (for fear of a 10 yuan penalty - I know it's only €1.24 but we are in budget travel mode) still so much fun!!
We then headed back to the hostel and got showered (the beauty of a hostel even though we were checked out) and prepared for our mammoth train journey.
It left Xi'an at 8pm so between reading and writing in my travel journal the time passed really quickly. We then slept from 12am until 9am which was really good going and when we woke up we only had 3 hours until we landed in Chengdu. We had hoped to be sharing a berth with other travellers but unfortunately it was not to be, we were with locals which included a kid! We did not sign up for the kid! Four bodies is a tight enough squeeze never mind a fifth who needed to be entertained and fed by sucking on slimy, dehydrated meat. Yum! Oh and we went up the chatting to a couple from Florida and when we came back they had robbed my bed. Boo to the chinese!
So anyways we arrived in Chengdu on Saturday 23rd, perfectly refreshed after a good sleep on the train, to much lower temperatures than we have experienced so far - think it was around 30 degrees so more than manageable! As soon as we arrived and got showered we headed out in search of an Irish bar so Ronan could watch the Ireland v New Zealand rugby match so had a lovely afternoon/evening eating and drinking even though the match was a disgrace! There are actually so many Irish ex-pats in Chengdu, it's surprising! What was not surprising was that they spent all Saturday afternoon in the pub no more than ourselves!
The following day we went to the panda reserve. Having learnt from previous experience we decided to bite the bullet and go as a tour with our hostel rather than public transport! So we had an amazing morning, loved the pandas!! My new favourite thing in China, I could have spent all day there and 3 hours was just not enough!
Myself and Ronan have been having a wee domestic for the last few days before going to the pandas - so holding a panda is a once in a lifetime experience and cost a lot of money so I wasn't sure about doing it. Ronan reckons he should be allowed to do something that is a once in a lifetime experience and costs a lot of money and what he has chosen is of course to do a bungee jump! I don't want him to do it BUT I got a little carried away when I saw the pandas and kinda forgot what the trade-off was....so in effect I said yes to Ronan doing the bungee by bending and holding a panda (which was awesome may I add!)....anyways watch this space I may talk him around yet! My argument is he is now a married man with responsibilities and should act accordingly!! Why can't he pick a once in a lifetime experience which involves standing on the ground?!
The tour from our hostel had 5 other people on it and we ended up spending the full day with an English couple we met (hi David and Becky!). They showed us the true backpacker style of getting a tasty lunch for €1 and an amazing dinner for €2! Fun times!
We decided to completely chill on our last day in Chengdu cos we have been rushing around doing stuff for weeks with no break and haven't stayed anywhere for more than 2 nights since Jaipur at the start so it was nice to have nothing to do and nowhere to be!
So leaving for Hong Kong early on Tuesday 26th and I'm not sorry although Chengdu has been the nicest Chinese city and the people not as bad. Also the heat wave finally broke so temperatures down to 23 degrees and it's even rained!! Bye bye China, can't see us being back!
Love it! You should only let Ronan do the jump if he wears that hat he has on in the photo above, haha! Xxx
ReplyDeleteLol!! He looks ridiculous doesn't he?!!! I hate it but he won't get a new one X
ReplyDelete"(yes as a 31 year old married man with an ever-growing forehead)" Love it!!!!
ReplyDeleteYou're not helping my task at convincing Nicole that it doesn't matter how we look as long as we're comfortable (and protected from sun)!! Anyway it's a lovely hat :-)
ReplyDeleteRonan's cunning new alias above in case you wondering who random person dfgyjbcx is not sure what he was at!!
ReplyDeleteThat panda is soooooo cute!!!
ReplyDeleteRonan your misuse of your social Services card has been noted! we are all enjoying reading your adventuresand we talk about them at break. At least we now know where we don't want to go.That picture of you eating them bugs is disgusting!!Imagine the weather cooling down to 23deg. If we got that here we would be sunbathing. Thunder,rain, cold, Ireland.
DeleteMary Mc
Thanks Mary - knew you'd be happy to see the PSC get some use!!! Hope all's well with ye back in Carrick. Think you might like the bugs - I'll bring a few back for coffee break maybe, you've always said anything would be eaten around that table!!!
Delete