August 31st: Out of China, into........well, China

Woke up again this morning to the smell of more pot noodles. It’s just sickening. We tried to stay in bed but had to get up in the end because of our crowded room on the train. The married couple from last night had already had a massive fight and she had gotten off the train somewhere during the night. That’s going to last long!

We exited the train to a seething mass of people in the city of Ghuanzhou. Our train to Hong Kong was not until 7.30pm so we had to arse around in this horrible city. It was really dodgy and very polluted.

The train to Hong Kong lifted our spirits. Lovely big leather reclining seats and a waitress that served us beer on the entire 1 hour journey into the city. Arriving in Hong Kong is like going to some futuristic city……..well, from where we had just come from. The taxi driver spoke English and we were at our hostel in a matter of minutes. It was soooo easy. Our room was on the 12th floor. It was about 5 feet by 3 feet in size and they had managed to squeeze 3 beds into the place. The door couldn’t even open properly without hitting one of the beds.

We went for a stroll around the streets and found a Singapore restaurant for a bit of dinner. It was the quickest service I have ever seen. Our soups were out before the waiter even left the table with our order. No joke. After dinner we headed to Delaney’s Irish pub for a pint. We all got an extra cold Heineken which was a nice change from a month of drinking Tsingtao Beer. We nearly choked when we found out how much they cost. 5.30 Euro!!!! per pint. And here are we trying to stick to a budget. Maybe Tsingtao isn’t that bad.

30th August: A choo-choo train and a wedding train.

Its time to leave western China behind us and head back to the east. This involves taking a 28 hour train trip along the south of China. We barely made the train as we stopped to get some beer to soften the long train journey. Again we were the height of attention as all the posh travelers take the planes and wouldn’t dare being stuck in a small cabin with 12 people. We of course were on a strict budget.

The smells in the train were terrible again as everyone in our carriage opened their pot noodles as the train took off. This did not bode well with the hangover. A new craze had also started. Eating hard boiled eggs in the pot noodle. As you can imagine it smelled even worse coming out than it did going in.

In our carriage full of strange people staring at us there was what could only be a newly wed couple whose honeymoon was this trip on the train. They spent most of the journey under the sheets tossing around and moaning. Not the nicest thing to be sleeping under.

On the good side of the trip were the views. We passed huge waterfalls, rolling hills, weird rock formations and hundreds of kids washing themselves in the sewers. Amazingly, it was the first time we had seen a paddy field in our month in China.

We cracked open the beers early but the conductor came around at 8pm and literally put everyone to bed. She was really annoyed with us because we couldn’t understand her and I got a bit worried when she jumped into my bed and pretended to sleep. Then I realized that she was telling us to go to sleep.

While bored on the train I decided to get rid of the rough and ready hunter/gather image:

And return to my boyish looks.

29th August: When there’s nothing to do, drink.

We arrived in Kunming at 6, a few hours ahead of schedule. After every taxi driver trying to rob us for a trip to the train station, we decided to walk. Because of this, all of the tickets to Ghuanzhou had been sold out so we would have to spend the night here in Kunming.

As we came out of the train station there were hundreds of people on the square dressed in three different colours, blue yellow and green. They were all doing Tai Chi in perfect unison led by a black cloaked master.

We searched around town and found what seemed to be the only hostel in the 4.3 million populated area. Again we were spoiled with running water that was on the luke warm side of cold.

Rich decided to lay low for a while while Fi and I visited the Bamboo temple which was well worth the trip out of town for. On entry its like every other temple we’d visited but as we delved deeper we found huge halls filled with hundreds of sculpted monks in ‘strange non-monk like poses’. The most impressive was the surfing monk, who was riding the waves on a fish.
With nothing else to do in this town we went and did what we do best. Drink. And drank some more. The session ended by us convincing Rich to get a massage. After an hour he came out looking none too impressed. Three Chinese girls had spent the hour by ‘hurting him as much as they could’. He told us he couldn’t tell them to stop because they had no English and for the most of the time he couldn’t scream because one of the three was standing on his windpipe.

After being in China for nearly a month now, I have mastered the art of squatting. Here's a few tips for budding travelers to areas of the world where sit down toilets are unheard of. Notice in the picture below that my feet are firmly on the ground. If I was not flat footed I would lose balance. Also notice how my hands are placed out in front for extra balance. This is particularly manditory on wet slippery floors.

And thats how you squat.....outside a temple. TaDaaa!