Category Archives: China

Itinerary For Traveling 7000+ Miles to China to Take One Photograph

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Okay that title is unfair. I am not going to take ONE photograph.  I am going to take eleventy billion photographs.

I always have my future travel plans mapped out in my head.  Once per year I take a BIG trip.  I knew last year that my BIG trip for 2015 was going to be India.  But then as always, my plans changed.

Last year, I spent a month in China.  This includes me going to Tibet and spending a night at Mount Everest Base Camp.  I really should get my posts about that up on my blog, eh?  Most exciting thing I have ever done and I have yet to post about it a year later.  Worst blogger ever.

But anyway, back to THIS post.   When I left Tibet and flew to Chengdu, I was crippled with depression because I wanted to still be in Tibet.  It was the most beautiful place I have ever been.  Sometimes I look at the photos and I cannot believe that I ever stood here:

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Stopover in Xining, China and Getting Knocked Down a Stairway. Oh China.

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I took my first overnight train from Xi’an to Xining.  It was not as bad as I thought it would be.  I was fortunate to have a bottom bed in a soft sleeper car.  My cabin-mates were nice, did not try to speak to me, but did try to give me cookies.  It appeared they were all together.  The (one I assumed was the) father had the bottom bunk opposite me.  He coughed nonstop all night which kept waking me up.  But other than that, not bad at all.

I make it out of the train station. I attempt to walk down the steps.  There is a ramp on the right side of the steps, intending for you to roll your luggage down it as you walk down the steps.  I could not figure out how to use it.  Neither could the woman in front of me.  Unlike me though, she kept trying.  This was holding up everyone.  Except that this is China so by “holding up everyone” I mean “making everyone smash into me to get me to go, but I couldn’t because she wasn’t.”  Next thing I know, I am pushed really hard, I still don’t want to knock the woman in front of me down, so I try to steady myself and end up falling backwards.  No one stops, they all keep continuing down the steps.  Sigh.

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Sometimes As A Solo Traveler, I want to Travel Solo

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Once upon a time, I was in Chengdu, China.   I was going to visit the Grand Leshan Buddha.   I get on the bus and it is hot and smells like a homeless person.  Shortly after, it begins.  I hear some girl talking loudly on a cell phone.  “There are no backpackers on here, only Chinese people and they all smell bad.”  I shrink down in my seat a bit.  It is one thing to not wish for human companionship ever, it is another to hide from someone who is rude enough to have said this aloud.  Don’t assume that no one on the bus can understand you.  I’m betting a bunch of them could.

We get to the town of Leshan and I make the mistake of not immediately running off the bus.  I get caught.  “Hi!  Do you want to share a cab?”  No thank you, I am taking the bus. “I will take it with you!”  Argh, fine.  We walk to the bus and she is joyously telling me how happy she is to have found me.  Me?  I don’t want to be found.

There is a thing about meeting people while traveling.  That thing is that I don’t want to.  Let me make this clear: I know I am the odd one here.  People who want to meet other people?  They are normal.   YOU are normal.  You should be glad I don’t want to spend time with people.  Who wants to spend time with a weirdo?  Go on, run off and be free!

Whenever I do meet someone, the internal dialogue starts.

Me: Ughhhhhhhhh

Me: Would it kill you to just be nice to this person?

Me: No, but I just don’t want to talk to anyone

Me: But would it kill you to just be nice to this person?

Me: But a huge part of this trip was to escape the real world and BE ALONE

Me: BUT WOULD IT KILL YOU TO BE NICE TO THIS PERSON?

Me: I DON’T WANNNNNNNAAAAAAAAAAAAA

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Booking a Trip to China? Here Are Some Helpful Hints

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CHINA!  I love China!  Look at China!  Yes, this is CHINA!

Tibet ChinaBooking my trip to China turned out to be Hell.   Looking back though, I can see that there were so many things that would have been easier if I had just known what I can and what I cannot do, and how to get around the cannot part.  Every single time I tried to book something, I just kept hitting road blocks.  Then I would figure it out and hit another one.  Then another one.  To the point I could not take it anymore and I hated myself for ever wanting to go to China in the first place.

This is a guideline of sorts for anyone who needs help in booking a trip to China.   If you follow everything below, you will be absolutely fine and suffer no pain.  I promise.

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Day Trip From Xian to Mount Huashan, China

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Mount Huashan is famous for some horrifying things, including the steps so steep you are basically hiking straight up (see here), and also for the plank walk which you can see here, which is just NO NEVER.

The mountain is located just outside of Xi’an, China.  To get here, you can take a bus from the Xi’an train station.  The bus takes about three hours and costs  22 Yuan ($3.52 USD)  You can also opt for a high speed train that leaves from Xian North train station (not the same one the bus leaves from.)  It takes 35 minutes, for 55 Yuan ($8.79 USD.)  You can also take a regular train, but there is really no logic in that.

Going to Huashan from the Xian train station:  the buses are located all the way to the right of the train station if you are facing it. You cannot miss them, there are a bunch.  The the destination is written on the bus in English (read the destination as buses to the Terra Cotta Warriors also leave from here!)
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Arrival in Xi’an China: The Day Nothing Went My Way

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I flew to Xi’an from Guilin.   At the airport, I was doing a combination of trying to stop sweating and silently willing everyone who was staring at me to STOP STARING AT ME.

We had a meal served to us on the plane.  I could not identify it so I did not eat it.   As we were about halfway through our flight, there was an announcement that I had never heard in real life before:  “Is there a doctor on board?”   YIKES.   The very young looking woman in front of me stood up to help. If she is old enough to be a doctor, then I am old enough to live in a nursing home.  I don’t really know what was going on because other than the initial announcement, there was no English spoken regarding what was going on.

Arrival in Xi’an.  UGH.  I need to buy a lighter (yes, smoking is gross) and there is nothing open in the airport.  I go outside to take a cab to my hotel.  No cabs will let me get in.  There are about eleventy billion cabs outside.  Approximately five lanes worth of cabs, all going back way so far that I cannot see the end of the lanes.   Every cab I tried to get in told me “NO.”  What do you mean, NO?  I’ll show YOU no.

I basically just stood in the middle of traffic (all cabs mind you) screaming about how “I NEED A FREAKING CAB.  I AM FROM NEW YORK, YOU CAN’T GET AWAY WITH THIS” and “I WILL STAND HERE IN THE MIDDLE OF TRAFFIC FLAILING MY ARMS UNTIL ONE OF YOU LETS ME GET IN YOUR CAB.  LET ME SEE YOU STARE AT THAT, MOTHER FUCKERS!”

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Guilin, China: Fubo Hill

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My last stop in Guilin is going to be Fubo Hill.   Making it here will be an accomplishment as I have tried a couple of times now and ended up lost.  By now I can kind of figure out how to walk here from my hotel, but I am not leaving from my hotel.  Nope, I am leaving from Yao Mountain.  Boy was this a production.

I want to take a cab to Fubo Hill from Yao Mountain.  There are lots of drivers in the parking lot, none of whom will pay attention to me when I approach them.  A couple walked away, one was sitting in his car and rolled up the window.   I find a group of cab drivers all together.  One keeps putting out a huge wad of cash and flashing hundreds at me to the point I wondered if maybe “taxi” or “Fubo Hill” sounded like “hooker” in Mandarin.

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Guilin, China: Dragon’s Backbone Rice Terraces Day!

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I am up early for my trip to the Dragon’s Backbone Rice Terraces  in Longsheng County, China.  This is such a huge wish list item for me and I just cannot believe I am finally going to visit a rice terrace!

I booked the trip through my hostel in Guilin.  It cost me 220 RMB ($35 USD) for the tour.  This is considered a very expensive tourist attraction for China.  I still think it was a bargain.

I had to meet my bus outside.  While waiting, I met a guy who was staying in my hostel, who was also making the trip.  Typical me felt like an asshole for not wanting to make a new friend.

I know there are a lot of shy people out there who find making conversation with strangers very painful.  See, the thing about me is that I am not shy.  At all.  I just honestly prefer my own company.  I don’t think talking to strangers is scary, I think it is exhausting.  I have had so many people come in and out of my life that I am just honestly happier when I am all by myself.  It is easier.

Fortunately, my new almost-friend did not sit next to me on the bus.  I felt relief and again, felt like an asshole.

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Guilin, China: Sun and Moon Pagodas

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Following my morning at the Reed Flute Cave, I napped.  When I woke up later, I went outside and for the third time, tried to find the bus that goes to Fubo Hill.  I walked around in every direction from my hotel and all it got me was sweaty.  I kind of wanted to go back to my room and cry, but instead, I thought I might be near the Sun and Moon Pagodas.  I did have a map, but maps are useless to people who just cannot master reading them.

I walked for a bit and made the observation that there may very well be more scooters in China than in Naples.  The huge difference is that scooters in China are silent.  I mean REALLY silent.  So silent that at one point, I had the life scared out of me by a horn blaring at me.  I turned and the scooter was less than an inch from me and I never even heard it coming up.  I honestly thought at first that maybe for some reason, they were all turned off and just gliding.  Nope, dead silent motors.

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