Hay crisis… No hay trabajo… Así que lo mejor es irse a dar la vuelta al mundo…
Tranquilos, que no soy yo el que se va. Es un gran tío (tocayo mío, además), que conocí en Tokio y que seguro que a los que nos quedamos nos va a permitir viajar un poquito a través de sus excelentes fotografías en su blog. Se va mañana por la mañana, y va a estar tanto como pueda por ahí, pero podéis calcular que tenemos delante nuestra unos 6-8 meses de vuelta por el mundo online. 🙂 Buen viaje, Ignacio. 😉
I will start the trip from the beginning, so I also refresh my mind and do not miss anything… I will try not to to bore you… 😉
I already wrote part of my first impressions of China in this post. I flew to Hong Kong and crossed the border to Shenzen to benefit from the cheap internal flights in China. Hong Kong area is full of islands, and the ferries are a common transport there. So, I found the fastest way for my purposes to reach an airport in Mainland China using the Turbo Jet Sea Express ferry linking Hong Kong International Airport and Shenzen Airport. Really easy way to go to Mainland. Just remember that you have to pick up your luggage before the customs, and that there is a free bus from the pier to the airport (just 2 km).
The first image I got when I jumped off from the boat was this one:
Nice sunset, isn’t it? It is a pity that it was cloudy… Cloudy? No. China is the most polluted country I have ever been (ok, I have only been within Europe, Canada and Japan, but anyway…) and that could be seen at simple sight. The “cloud” is always present: in Shenzen, in Beijing, in Xi’an and even in Shanghai. But, of course, this was just the beginning, in one of the most industrialized areas of China, also called Special Economic Zones, where more factories are placed, and where tougher controls are carried out to avoid an overpopulation around it.
So, after this shock and the issue with the taxis, I took one of the last flights to Beijing, where it was snowing during the night… Nice image, but bad omen for the rest of the days there regarding the climate… Thanks to God, I was prepared. 🙂
I have been asked that 7 times today, since I arrived to Shanghai this morning after 16 hours of train in hardsleep from Xi’an. By the way, I strongly recommend to use always the softsleeper if you actually want to rest in the train. In the hardsleep you share your space with too many people, and you do not control the lights… So, you will not sleep as much as you want. Tonite, someone dropped his coat from his berth in a third level hitting a bottle with water next to me, which fell into the floor, waking me and others up for a while… and of course, at 7.00 am the lights were on and the music, and the people were walking and talking around…
But I was talking about something more interesting. “Where are you from?”. I have been asked this question today by 4 couples of girls, 1 couple (boy and girl), one girl, and one waiter in a door of a restaurant. In the first 6 cases, my suspect is that it was a well-known scam in China. They talk to you, showing interest in speaking English and after a while, they suggest to go to some place to have a tea (typical, as we are in China). The problem is that the Tea House is extremely expensive, so you pay a lot and you cannot really complain… I knew that, so I did not dare to speak to any of them, except the last two groups, as I wanted to see how they did their job, but I quitted just after they offered me to go anywhere.
I wonder how it can work with anybody, as it is a very forced situation: a strange starts walking with you in the street with a lot of interest in you… That’s not normal… But it still works a lot, otherwise there would not be so many people practicing that. Today, apart from my 6 cases, I noticed 4 more facing other people. This is one of the new things I found in Shanghai. Although in Beijing I met a couple who were victims of this, here it seems to be more extreme.
Apart from that, I have found Shanghai quite more international than Beijing or Xi’an. Most labels are also in English, you see many foreign people in the street, and also the aspect of most of the city is western-styled, with skyscrapers and so on… Still, we have the mess in the traffic, the bicycles, and the intense shopping… but it is different.
Deep down, this was a small town until the french and the british arrived here and made what we can see today. In fact, there is a neighbourhood called French Concession (tomorrow I hope to find time for it) and you can hear a lot of French in the streets…
Coming back to the question: “Where are you from?”… The answer they expected me to give when they asked me the question entitling this post was “France”, and they looked disappointed when I said: “No, Spain”… “But you look French…!!”
I am in Xi’an, one of the ancient capitals of China. I arrived this morning after travelling the whole night by train from Beijing. Pretty good and convenient, as you do not need to waste time by going to the airport and so on, just sleeping in the train, and you get up in your next destination.
I stayed four days in Beijing and was ok. The first day I just walked around without almost any direction (I was about to get frozen), so I visited Tiannamen square, the Olympics area, and walked around some centric areas. The second day I did the Palace day: the Forbidden City and the Summer Palace (I was delighted with both of them). The third day I took it easy (do not forget I am on vacation), so I just walked around, through some Hutong (old neighbourhood), the Bell Tower, and went to Karaoke (I had to make the comparison China-Japan in this). The last day was the Great Wall day. Impressive to see even if you go to the touristic part, as I did. I might have found things to do for one more day, but I am looking forward to getting some warmer weather, so I preferred to skip some shopping and start moving south.
Now, Xi’an is impressing me in a quite positive way… Apart from the famous Terracotta warriors, it has a quite well preserved old city, with a complete wall, some old buildings, and a nice Christmas’ evening happening… I do not know what was it, but people were in the city centre with balloons, playing games, eating sweets, wearing hats, …
Tomorrow I will visit the rest of the city, and tomorrow I will head towards Shanghai.
I managed to arrive to Beijing in the same day I left from Tokyo. This was not easy, as my flight was to Hong Kong, and there I had to find the counter for an express ferry (I will write about this some other time) which took me from the Hong Kong International Airport (cool, in an island) to the Shenzen airport (already in China), and there I had to fly to Beijing. The difficult part of this was the tightness of the schedules, and that I had not bought any ticket. But I managed to do so, although I was always a bit in a hurry to get the next connection.
For certain reason, I had to go back from Shenzen Airport to the pier where the ferry had left me. The only feasible option in a reasonable time (so I could be back in the airport soon and take the flight to Beijing) was a taxi. As it was quite close (less than 2 km), the taxi drivers in the queue (the official ones, which use a meter for charging) rejected to take me there… So, I asked for help in a counter in the airport, and the girl there negotiated with me the price (10 times more than I would have paid in case I got an official one), took me out of the airport, and suddenly a taxi arrived there, she talked to the driver, explained the situation, asked for some commission (or that is what it seemed) and told me: “you pay him when he brings you back here”. And so I did… and I took my flight.
I thought this thing of the taxi drivers not willing to take a customer to the right place, and the non-official taxis was something related to Shenzen, one of the most dangerous cities in China, according to the travel guide… But not. Today a total of 6 taxis have not picked me up, while I was in the city centre… Probably they thought I was going to some other centric spot (I was not, but they did not even ask me). Finally a crazy taxi driver (I did not know this until he was driving me to the Summer Palace) picked me up.
You might be wondering why I am such an expert in taxis in China. Well, anyone can be. They are extremely cheap. The flag price is 10 yuan, around 0,11 euro, and is up to 2 km. And the rest is more or less at this price. From the airport to the city centre in the night, it was around 150 yuan, and it is more than 30 km far away. So, normal rides in the city can cost less than 3 euros, and it is normally much better and faster. When I see these prices… I wonder where the impact of the Brent crude price is.