Trains, Boats, Buses, Cable Cars, and One Big Buddha

Last Sunday I went to the Po Lin Monastery on Lantau Island where the "Big Buddha" is. I went with Brian and a couple other of his friends from the States. There is a train stop at the base of the mountain that has a cable car that goes strait to the monastery. We, however, decided to take the long route which turn out to be a mistake. We first took the train from CUHK to the tip of Kowloon to find the ferry to Lantau. We discovered that the only place to get a ferry to Lantau was at the Central Piers on Hong Kong Island. So we took a ferry across to Central and then figured out which boat we needed. We waited 30 minutes until the ferry we wanted arrived. The boat ride was then about an hour long. Once we got to Lantau we had to take a bus to get to the monastery. This was another hour long ride. The reason the bus took so long is that Lantau is very mountainous. Even though the length of the bus ride was a little annoying, it was neat to go through the mountains and forests on Lantau. That day was very very cloudy and the mountains were so high we drove up into the clouds. We were pretty happy once we got to the monastery since it had taken us about four hours to get there. Unfortunately, since it was so cloudy we could not see much. There were stairs that you had to walk up to get to the Buddha, but you couldn't see the top of the stair case. Once we got to the top, we could only see the outline of Buddha, but that in its self was neat. Inside the Big Buddha was a museum. It had all kinds of neat artwork but everything was explained in Chinese, so I have no idea what it actually was. We then walked back down to the monastery to get lunch. It was all vegetarian but very good. We explored the temple nearby for a little bit before deciding to head back down. We did not want to spend forever getting back to CUHK so we took the cable car. The cable car ride was actually a lot longer then I had expected, about 45 minutes. By that time it had gotten so cloudy that if another car was coming the other direction you could only see it for a couple of seconds, not to mention for the most part you couldn't see the ground. Near the end we descended enough to be outside of the clouds. We got a very high birds eye view of the Hong Kong Airport which was neat. Once we got back on the ground we took the train back to CUHK.

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Yangshuo: Day Two

Despite being scheduled to arrive in Guilin at 6am we pulled into the station at 7am. It was somewhat annoying as the staff on the train kept waking us up telling us "20 minutes" about every 30 minutes starting at 5am. While getting ready to leave we realized that the cabin next to ours was occupied by three French exchange students from CUHK: Nolwenn, Marie, and Adrien. We had known that there was a possibility of running into them in Yangshuo but we had no idea they were in the cabin next to us. So all seven of us decided to sick together. When we left the station the first thing we had on the agenda was to figure out where the docks were so we could catch a boat to Yangshuo. That was solved rather quickly since there were people just outside of the station wanting to sell us tickets. Mandy was able to negotiated the price as she spoke Mandarin. After they refused to accept our price we left, and about 2 minutes later they came back and agreed to the price. They took us to this makeshift box office set up inside the lobby of a hotel where we paid and got our tickets. The lady then took us around the corner to a restaurant where we could get breakfast. It was 3 yuan (US$0.40) for a big bowl of rice noodle soup with chunks of pork (they were tender and legitimate parts of the pig). We were then taken to a small bus which picked up a bunch of people to be taken to the dock.

The docks were about an hour drive away and a tour guide talked every second of the trip. I didn't pay attention to the tour guide at all since it was all in Mandarin. We were then dropped off at the shop area near the docks while we waited until our boarding time. Here we noticed Guangxi is much colder then Hong Kong. It was not freezing but jackets did make a difference. After waiting for a while it was time for us to be rushed to dock where our boat was waiting. The boat was not too big. Inside were seats and tables, while a stair case lead up to an observation deck. We were the only group of Westerners and every now and then there would be a tour guide making an announcement about something we were passing but it was all in Mandarin. We headed down the river in a convoy of three. The mountains were quite amazing and really only pictures can describe (unfortunately it was hazy that day). Along the way we saw lots of rural Chinese going about their daily lives. Some were washing their clothes in the river, others were herding oxen, and some were making bricks. Bricks seemed to be a common industry in the area and it was all done by hand. They were digging with shovels, backing in wooden shacks, and just stacking the bricks (all imperfect by our standards) along the river side for someone to pick up later. Every now and then a merchant would attach himself to our boat and try to sell us stuff. They had simple bamboo boats (4 or 5 long pieces of bamboo tied together) and would row out to us and tie their boat to the side of ours. They would then walk up and down the side of the boat just outside the window and try to sell us things ranging from fruit to fans to jade. None of the crew of our boat seemed to care that merchants kept boarding the ship. At one point there was a merchant on each side of the boat selling the same things. It looked like a couple of the passengers were having fun playing them off each other. The boat ride was suppose to take 4 hours but it ended up being well over 5.

By the time we got to Yangshuo we were all ready to find a place to put our bags and rest a little bit. The problem was the dock was some ways from the town. The one street that went to town was packed with vendors trying to sell all kinds of things. At the docks there were a couple ladies trying to sell us rooms for the night at different hotels. They followed us all the way down the street before we agreed to check one of them out. It was the Ya Yao Hotel. It was pretty nice inside, looked a lot like a nice hotel back home. We had our own beds and our own bathroom, all for about US$4.10 each per night. Once we got settled in and took a little break we decided to go explore the town. Before we left the lady who had brought us to the hotel tried to sell us tickets to all kinds of stuff locally. We were not sure what we wanted to do yet and it took some convincing to get her off our back so we could go out and explore the town. Yangshuo seemed like a festive town that was very well maintained. The streets were stone and the buildings were all very clean. A couple of streets down from our hotel was West Street which was where all the bars, restaurants, and shopping are. It reminded me of Park City or some other American mountain resort town, but with a strange Chinese feel. It had all the nice quaint buildings but with neon signs out front.

One of the first things we did was to buy tickets for the Impressions Light Show that evening. This show is famous across China as it is directed by the same guy who directed the opening show at the 2008 Olympics. We went to a travel agency called "Panda Travel Service" to buy the tickets. Before we could we were asked a strange question "Do you have a tour guide?" We said no. Apparently if you have a tour guide you cannot purchase the tickets from them. After eating dinner at a brick oven pizza place (I know sounds strange in China but it was very good) we wondered around some of the shops. They had lots of art work, clothing, trinkets, and pretty much what ever else you may be interested in. We then met back up at the Panda Travel Service building to board the van to the show, but there was a problem. Apparently the lady we bought the tickets from had called our hotel to make sure we did not have a tour guide. The lady at the hotel claimed we did. After a bit of argument it was finally figured out that the lady at the hotel had lied (the travel agent said that she has done this before) because she was upset we did not buy the tickets through the hotel. We were a bit annoyed but in any case the van was leaving and we could go. The show was just outside the town. The stage was the river with the back ground being the mountains which were lit up. The show is hard to describe. There were a lot of performers singing and dancing, but all accented by light. Most of the performance was on the water, either on rafts, along the edge, or on this platform that was like a dock that could pivot across the water. Afterwards the van took us back to town and we grabbed a quick snack before bed.

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Yangshuo: Day One

Over the last weekend I decided to take a trip into south China to a town called Yangshuo in the Guangxi Province. I went with Chase, Kalen, and a local Chase knew, Mandy. We left CUHK on Friday to go to Shenzhen to catch the train to Guilin. The train was a night train meaning that most of the trip was done through the night. It was scheduled to leave at 5:50pm and arrive in Guilin at 6:00am the next day. The train station was very busy and had to wait in line for a while before we could purchase tickets. We got the highest class of seats, soft sleeper. This meant that the four of us would get a cabin to ourselves and each of use had a bed. It was a very small cabin and the beds were bunked but it was a lot more comfortable (and safer) then any of the other classes. On the train there were a few other foreigners but it was mostly locals (and a lot of military officers) traveling. There was a restaurant car on the train which we spent some time in the evening in. The food was cheap but questionable. All of us tried to go to bed pretty early but it was difficult on the train. One thing that was obvious while taking the train across the country was how many people there are. We rode for several hours outside of the city before I lost sight of a high rise. There were also numerous slum villages of just shacks which I did not see much of since the sun set soon after leaving Shenzhen. Many famers had plots of land that were just the space between the nearest building or road to the rail track, often being only a few feet wide. I saw very little space being wasted.