The Fascinating and Confronting China
Our Flickr album on China
We only had 12 days in China so we stuck to the main cities (Xi'an, Chengdu and Beijing), but it was an amazing initiation for us. China only opened up to overseas tourism in the late 70's, after Chairman Mao's death. Leisure travel was considered a capitalistic activity and therefore forbidden under Marxian principles. It is crazy to think that such an ancient culture has been kept hidden from the world for so long!
Mao Zedong's image, outside the Forbidden City, Beijing
The first things we noticed was how cheap China can be (especially in comparison to Japan), and how good the food is! We were very happy to be having good, cheap food again! Also, in comparison to Japan, we were loving the abundance of cheap, fresh produce - finally we could eat big plates of vegies again and not have it cost an arm and a leg!
Xi'an
Our first stop was Xi'an, home to the famous Terracotta Army, but surprisingly one of the highlights for us was the Muslim Quarter. A very authentic (but still touristy) street market with stalls selling everything from tea, fruit, souvenirs, to freshly grilled lamb skewers (with the lamb carcasses hanging next to the stalls).
Muslim Quarter, Xi'an
Lamb carcass at the Muslim Quarter, Xi'an
The Drum Tower of Xi'an
The main attraction in Xi'an is the Terracotta Army and it comes with a pretty crazy story. Qin Shi Huang, the first Emperor of China, ordered this army of more than 8,000 terracotta soldiers to be built, only to be buried with him and protect him in his after life. This was around 200 BCE and it took approximately 38 years and 700,000 (!) workers to complete. Fast forward 2,000 years, and in 1974, local Chinese farmers were digging a water well when they stumbled across it! To think all that work could have gone undiscovered forever. Excavation works still continue to this day, and more sculptures might come up.
Terracotta Army, Xi'an
Terracotta Army, Xi'an
Chengdu
From Xi'an, we took the new bullet train (only opened in December/2017) to Chengdu, our second stop in China. Chengdu is the capital of the Sichuan province, and is mostly famous for the Panda Research and Breeding Centre. Enough talking, photos pls...
Meeting the locals from Chengdu
Meeting the locals from Chengdu
Yes, this is a baby panda!
And a Red Panda. Which looks more like a raccoon.
We went on this great tour that took us to see the pandas in the morning, and experience the local Sichuan culture by visiting the local wet market, tea house and a cooking class in the afternoon. We had a lovely day, and it was an amazing way to see what Chengdu has to offer. One thing we found difficult about travelling in China was getting past the touristy parts to really see the local life. This tour took us into parts we would not have been able to witness on our own (we literally had to walk under a tarp to get to the tea house).
Local market in Chengdu. Shopping for our cooking class.
In our Sichuanese cooking class
A traditional Chinese tea house
Beijing
Beijing was our last stop in China and also in Asia. From here we'll go to Russia and start our Europe leg. It is also the last destination before the what's likely going to be hectic World Cup, so we decided to take it easy. Really easy. This was the first time we spent more than 4 nights in the same place, since we started travelling, 3 months ago. We allowed ourselves an eternity of 6 nights in Beijing. In a hotel. With pool and gym. Man, that's life! So from the comfort of our hotel room, we would venture out maybe only once or twice a day to see the city. It felt amazingly good to slow down a bit, do nothing, enjoy the gym and the pool - and doing a bit of sightseeing when we felt like it.
Alex in front of the entrance to the Forbidden City, Beijing
The crowds in front of the entrance to the Forbidden City, Beijing
Scorpions on a skewer, Beijing
And then - of course - there's The Great Wall of China. This was the second of the 7 Wonders of the World that we see in our trip (after the Taj Mahal), and it also didn't disappoint.
The Great Wall of China
We visited the Mutianyu section of the wall, which is about 1h drive from Beijing and has very easy access. You can pretty much drive all the way to the bottom of the wall and catch a chair lift to the top. Once up there, you can wander around and tobbogan your way back down - highly recommended.
We were really surprised about how few tourstist there were. Not sure if it's just a less busy part of the wall or we were lucky, but there were times when there was literally no one around us and we could enjoy the scenery all alone.
The Great Wall of China
The Great Wall of China
The Great - and STEEP - Wall of China
All in all our time in China was yet another amazing experience. It was not easy - language is a significant barrier there, and the Chinese people are very different to what we're used to and really stretched and tested our levels of acceptance. But we both left wanting to come back there again one day.
谢谢, China!