My First Day in China

I’d not really made a plan for my trip to China. I had been hoping to travel overland in to Tibet from Nepal. When I first got to Nepal this would have been possible, although I would have had to go as part of a tour group and be with a guide at all times. Then nearer to the time I hoped to head on, the Chinese government changed their rules, making it only possible visit Tibet in groups of five people who all had to be of the same nationality. With the help of travel companies in Kathmandu I nearly had a group of four other English people to visit Tibet with. Then due to self immolations within Tibet, the Chinese government decided to stop tourist visiting all together. They of course would not like the world to see monks setting themselves on fire in protest at what is happening to them and their country.

I had ideas about where I wanted to go when I reached China, but as I wasn’t sure when I wanted to go where or whether I’d fancy staying a day or so in Guilin, the town I was flying in to, I thought I’d just wait and see what happened when I arrived. And what happened when I arrived was that I joined a Chinese tour group for the day.

I made a new friend on the plane who was going to be visiting her relatives in China. And as most Chinese people seem to like to do, they had organised their trip to be part of a tour group. We were greeted by their guide, who like all guides here was holding high a flag so none of his group would be getting lost. Everyone was extremely nice to me and I was immediately invited to join their tour free of charge. With no other plans I decided to accept the invite and kept my eyes intently on the flag.

We spent the day visiting parks and caves. Some I was sneaked into for free and others I had to pay for but was given a discount. I have found that in China whatever you want to do, if you do it officially, then you have to pay and you have to pay quite a lot. Even with my free entry and discounts the cost of my day was getting a bit much, and so when the tour group checked in to their rather expensive hotel I declined the offer of joining them and decided to move on alone.

Having seen far more of Guilin than I’d anticipated I decided to try and leave that day and go to a little town called Yangshuo. I was instructed that I would need to get a taxi to the bus station and the guide and my friends relatives wrote down the name of the bus station in Chinese. Out on the street however, I realised I had a bit of a problem. I had no idea how to get a taxi when there weren’t any taxis anywhere to be seen. So as there really weren’t any taxis anywhere to be seen, I set off on foot in the direction I thought it most likely the bus station would be in. I then began to ask anyone I passed if they could help me. Most people couldn’t help me, because most people couldn’t speak any English at all and were too concerned about this to even attempt communicating with me. Eventually though I found the man I needed who pointed out some guys on motorbikes, told one of them where I wanted to go and helped me agree on the price. And the next thing I was riding on the back of one of the bikes, sheltered from the sun by a huge attached umbrella, and then I was at the bus station and directed to my bus thanks to the help of my guidebook writing the place names in Chinese.

At Yangshou after things not looking all that good, my luck picked right back up again. When I got off the bus I again asked many people without success where I could find a hostel. People either just couldn’t understand me and I of course couldn’t understand them, or they pointed me in one direction and then the next person to direct me would point me in another direction. It seemed to be true that hardly anyone in at least this part of China could speak English. But again after nearing desperation, I eventually found just the man I needed and he pointed me in the right direction. Then I saw some other tourists who showed me the way right to the hostel I ended up staying in. Not only was it cheap, but I had the whole dorm to myself with my own massive bed with white duvet and pillows, my own clean towel, my own bathroom with my own free travel pack of toiletries, my own TV, and even my own free toilet paper – luxury!

Exploring

Returning to Kathmandu after the trek, Niall and I stayed there for a few days to explore a bit more of the area.

I managed to find my way back to the flat Sarah (my sister) used to live in. I was very much hoping that Pumba – the neighbours friendly dog – would be there to jump up at me like he always did when I stayed there before. To my disappointment though, he was nowhere to be seen.

Next we took a visit to the zoo just up the road. I remembered from last time that the enclosures weren’t all that big. My main memory was of the particularly small bear enclosure where the poor bear sat looking very miserable whilst visitors to the zoo threw nuts at him. It was lovely to see that although the enclosures were still on the small side, they had at least been made quite a bit bigger. This time no one was throwing nuts at the bear and even if they had wanted to, the bear had enough room to get out of hitting range. One thing that confused me and still continues to do so were the hyenas. You could stand just a few feet away from them with the only thing in between them and you being a waist high wall. Surely given the chance a hyena might like to bite someone, either through hunger or through annoyance. And surely a hyena could jump up on to and over a waist high wall. Perhaps my assumptions are wrong though, as we didn’t witness one person being bitten, let alone a jumping hyena. We did get to say hello to the elephant who was being walked around the zoo, and also saw lots of other exciting animals. We even had a go on a seesaw too.

We visited the old towns of Patan and Bhaktapur with beautiful ancient buildings, spending a night in Bhaktapur. Along with its buildings, Bhaktapur is known for its pottery and its homemade yoghurt. On the way in I happened to notice the hugest marijuana forest just growing by the side of the road. I asked a security guard what it was doing there and he told me “yes, it is a problem”. I however found it quite fun to go down and make my way into it. You couldn’t really go in very far because the plants grew so close together and I was afraid of unknowingly falling into the river which may well have doubled as a sewer, but by just going a couple of steps inside I was completely engulfed in hundreds of plants about twice my height. When this adventure was over we explored the old town, met people firing their clay pots, and saw them all prettily lined up for sale. We visited the burning ghats where it appeared that a body had just been cremated, and spent time sat up high at one of the temples just watching everything going on below. We sampled yoghurt from various different yoghurt shops and concluded that Bhaktapur is very worthy of being known for its yoghurt.

For my last week in Kathmandu I stayed in Kopan Monastery on a hill top overlooking the city. Here I took part in a Tibetan Buddhism and meditation course. Throughout the day we had sessions of guided meditation, teachings about Tibetan Buddhism, and discussion groups with other people from the course. I’m not really very good at meditating, often finding my brain starts to think about something it’s not supposed to be thinking about at the time. But other things about the course were really good. It was so interesting learning more about Tibetan Buddhism and discovering that the conclusions I have come to so far about life and being happy, very much fit in with Buddhist philosophy. Everyone on the course was so nice, and I loved our discussion groups where we could exchange our ideas and opinions. I also loved the eat as much as you can meals where normally for at least one meal a day they had a bowl of special homemade peanut butter. I’ve never been a fan of peanut butter, but this was simply scrumptious! Every day we were requested to remain in silence until lunch time. This was actually quite nice, although I did sort of cheat a little. I found there was a place at the back of the monastery for rescued goats and cows. So in my free time in the mornings I always went and said hello to them and the nice man looking after them. I’m not sure whether talking to animals breaks the silence rule or whether talking to the man mostly in English and signs whilst he talks to me in Nepalese would break it either, but I kept it mostly to myself just in case. At night after our final meditation I returned to my room, which I shared with three other people. I couldn’t have asked for better roommates. Many a very funny night talking and laughing was substituted for a good night’s sleep. Fortunately there was peaceful meditation time first thing each day!