Portuguese style China - Macau

Tiny little Macau, so much colour - what a refreshing change from the rest of China! Of course most Chinese only come here for the gambling, but they are missing out on so much because it is such a nice place to spend a couple of days wandering around admiring the architecture and over indulging on the food.

.

Portugese style building in Largo do Senado

We loved the gorgeous colourful facades of the Portugese influenced architecture, so much blue, yellow, pink, green, much more preferable to the usual 10 shades of grey on the mainland! Once again it was difficult to believe that we were still in China, the Catholic Churches on just about every corner are a far cry from the Tibetan monasteries and Muslim mosques that we had seen previously in our trip. Armed with a brand new camera from Hong Kong, there was plenty of scenery to keep us happy snappers busy. .

Macanese tarts and scooters, two icons of Macau

There seems to have been a real effort to maintain the Portugese feel, with old colonial buildings and forts restored and all signs written in both Portugese and Chinese. With the cobbled back streets filled with fashionistas on their European scooters, you could have easily believed that you had been transported half a word away, if it weren't for all the black hair perhaps.

The facade of the church of St Paul

Doing up your car is obviously the thing to do with plenty of nice ones cruising the narrow streets and laneways. It is also probably the first and only time we are likely to see Vespas and Lambrettas covered with Astro Boy, Seasame Street and Hello Kitty stickers! Though they are definitely serious about style here, no Honda Dreams or Waves, all the bikes are European or "European styled".

The antique furniture shops provided the temptation to spend some money for a little while, but having no abode and no fixed address (and with no prospect of having one for a while), the fantasies were swifty put to an end.

Macanese colour (and laundry)

More Macanese colour

Even further Macanese colour

The Macau Museum was one of the best we have seen (the quality of the English explanations made us suspect that most of the exhibitions may have been created before the handover), particularly the comparisons between Portugese and Chinese culture at the time of colonisation. After having spent some time walking around the place it was good to see the ways in which the two cultures had influenced each other.

Macau also offered a nice change to our palettes with yummy Macanese cuisine to try. We feasted on delicious seafood, chorizo and portuguese chicken and for the first time in ages, proper rosetta rolls and extra virgin olive oil to dip in. It was gastronomic heaven topped off with special Macanese tarts that were derived from the unique combination of Chinese 'darn' tarts and Portuguese tarts. Aimes had trouble resisting them (and the almond/mung bean cookies) after each meal and borded the bus out of Macau to Guangzhou a couple kilos heavier, armed with her brand new saddle bags.

Coloane Wharf

Drying fish in a village on Coloane

There is definitely a sea-faring feel in Macau, with it's many forts, harbours and Ama Temples (for the Chinese fishermen). Particularly on the 'islands' of Taipa and Cologne (they have long been linked to each other by a massive causeway), where we walked around and explored the quaint fishing villages. Even the beaches are European styled - complete with unattractive black sand! As at Tai O in Hong Kong these villages were so quiet and sleepy that it was hard to fathom that we were only a 30 minute bus ride away from the centre of town.

Super Bock!

The Roman Catholic influence - the Chuch of St Dominic

Perhaps the only downside we experienced during our time in Macau was being reaquainted with mainland tourists, which very quickly reminded us that the politeness and courtesy we had been revelling in while in Hong Kong was but a brief respite. No more people holding doors open for you or complete strangers in coffee shops offerring to call their son to find out directions for you, just pushing and shoving, walking in front of your photos and coughing (in your face)! Can't wait to get back to the proper China in a couple of days!

We're not on the mainland anymore, Toto (and Hobbes road testing the new camera)

Portugese/Chinese fusion

On our last night we thought we couldn't really come to Macau without checking out the casinos. We checked out the Lisboa, one of the originals and seemingly still one of the most popular. It was full of many mainlanders, almost exlusively men, all eager to part with some of their hard earned. The casino isn't flash, there's none of the flashing lights, fake palm trees and tacky art works that make other casinos so appealling, guess people were there for one reason only- to gamble! In fact the two floors looked exactly the same, except one was non-smoking and the other smoking (and smokey - so much so that it would have been difficult for the gamblers to see their cards!).

Macau isn't immune to the Chinese construction boom

Bakery-goodness (fresh almond cookies that contibuted to Aimes' saddle bags)

So that was it for the SAR's (Special Administrative Regions), from here it was back to the mainland for a few more weeks. The boarder crossing from Macau into Guangdong was almost as interesting as the lift at Hong Kong with hundreds of people crossing pulling little trolleys with one box on each. Not sure what it was all about, but must have had something to do with avoiding taxes or duties on imports?

Why most Chinese love Macau

I Heart Hong Kong

Ah ... Hong Kong! You've gotta love this place, a wonderous mix of East meets West. From soaring skyscrapers and bright neon lights to quaint fishing villages and national parks, there is so much here to entertain both of us.

After yet another long haul journey (on a train which decided to 'go slow' between Guangzhou and the border) we arrived at Shenzhen and crossed the border from China into not-quite China by 'escalator'. A little travel weary, we arrived in bustling Tsim Sha Shui to be greeted by swarming touts offering their discount rooms in the manky building known as the infamous 'Chungking Mansions'. Mansions by name but defintely not mansions by nature! This old dilapidated building is a host to many budget hostels and which, although a little basic, was what we were to call home for the next 10 days.

There's a first for everything!

Aimes and Mimi in Lan Kwai Fong

We immediately freshened up and hit the streets to meet up with Mim who was there enroute to Delhi for a friend's wedding. Sporting a new Honky perm we almost didn't recognise her from behind. Though it was really great to see a familiar face. We set out for some food as Hobbes was a little cranky as he hadn't eaten all day (it was 3 o'clock!), our first taste of Hong Kong was the speciality - a steaming bowl of true wan ton noodles! Yum!

We spent the arvo and evening walking around town, catching the famous 'Star Ferry' across Victoria Harbour and grabbing a drink in the VERY exi Lan Kwai Fong area. The next day we sampled the local fare by visiting Mim's aunt's favourite 'hole in the wall' congee shop, where what was meant to be pork congee for Hobbes ended up coming out from the kitchen as pig's liver! Aimes and Mim had lots of Cantonese practising to do!

The 'glamorous' Chungking Mansions

As it was Sunday, it was 'maids day off' in Hong Kong. Every street and bit of parkland was full of 'picnicing' Filopino women who use this day to shoot the breeze with their fellow maids. Walkways, footbridges and mall areas were all full of women gathering, chatting away, playing cards and picnicing on flattened cardboard boxes. The whole city seemed to be brimming with young and old Filopino women - it really made you wonder exactly how many people have maids in this city.

The commercial heaven of Causeway Bay

Definitely the best way to get around

Sunday also coincided with a pro-democracy march, which having been in China for so long seemed a little inappropriate (it was then that we realised we'd been corrupted by watching too much CCTV). We were at Central later that evening when the news on a giant LCD screen showed a piece on the march - all the people on the street broke out into a spontaneous applause, it was a very uplifting moment seeing so much community spirit in a big city. However, the channel was quickly changed at this point, suggesting that the Chinese Big Brother wasn't too far away...

Starting the following week was the well publicised and contentious WTO conference, it took a lot of convincing to explain to Aimes' relos that we weren't visiting HK to partake in some rioting shenanigans with the Korean farmers and cop pepper spray in the face (although it was a worthy cause).

Avenue of Stars - last night Jackie Chan came round...

More commercial craziness - Mong Kok

Though the HK police did pay us a visit on one night of our stay in Hong Kong. Our hostel was raided at three in the morning for a passport check... one of the unmentioned benefits of staying at Chungking Mansions!

Being December, Hong Kong had certainly got into the 'consumer', if not quite 'Christmas', spirit. Every mall and shopping centre had extremly elaborate decorations, each seemingly trying to out do the other. The most spectacular was the 8pm light show each night, where most buildings along the harbourside skyline were lit up with Christmas lights and a laser show. It was like a whole city had been turned into a giant (if very quiet) rave party. We enjoyed walking along the 'Avenue of Stars' (a la Hollywood, but with Chinese actors), watching the kids go nuts over the light display.

Aimes gets a bit carried away with online gaming...

People, people and more people

Of course the consumer spirit is at the heart of Hong Kong and despite our meagre funds, we tried our best to join in (when in Rome...). Several kilometres were walked around the streets and shops of Causeway Bay, Mong Kok, Temple Street and Tsim Sha Tsui, resulting in a couple of boxes having to be sent home...

During our time in Hong Kong it felt as though we used just about every type of public transport available - ferries, subway, buses, trams, trains. Fortunately Hong Kong is a little (maybe that should be light years) more advanced than Australia with the 'Octopus' smart card being able to take us all over the island, surrounding islands and even to Macau. It really set a precedent for how good a transport system can be if there is some investment into it!

Hong Kong's skyline by night

Also, on the planning front, we visited the Urban Planning exhibition which showed us how much of the harbour is being reclaimed to build a public waterfront precinct. The jokes around town is that one day the island will meet the Kowloon side with all the rubble they are pouring into the harbour.

The Bank of China Building

Our trip to Lantau island was a little poorly planned as the day we went was full of blustering freezing winds. We explored the quaint and colourful fishing village of Tai O and walked out to the windy headland looking out to the new airport. It is hard to believe that such a sleepy place can be only half an hour away from the big city lights of Hong Kong Island - it was like the central coast on valium! The big Buddha, temple and Lantau Peak were given a miss as the weather was not going to change in our favour any time soon.

The colour of Tai O

Brrrrr...cold weather on Lantau Island

Drying fish, Tai O Village

Being able to eat Cantonese food for the first time in 3 months (it is surprising how much you miss soy sauce) was one of the unexpected benefits of being in Hong Kong, Yum Cha of course being the highlight. We visited one restaurant in the city hall with views over the harbour and caught up with 'Pat-rick' (the Pom from our trip in Mongolia). 'Char-siew farn' (BBQ Pork with rice) was also another favourite - much better than the Sydney stuff, returning twice to one little shop in Soho for it, where Anthony Bourdain had given his tick of approval. We were taken to the acclaimed 'Tai Foo' by one basketball-touring 69 year old uncle who is spritely as a 20 year old, and also had yet more yum cha with an another uncle and aunt who were going to take us to Aimes' great great grandfathers' village on the mainland in the coming week.

Waiting for a bus on Lantau Island

Temple Street Night Market

Soho was also cool for antique shops (although overly priced compared to the mainland) and a little temple called Ma Mo which has the beautiful incense coils hanging from the ceiling. We went to the Soho Festival one Sunday, which was a little tame, with a bit of face painting and some beer stalls on the street (maybe it should have more accurately been referred to as a Heineken Promotional event) - give us the Surry Hills Fest or Newtown Fest anyday! The only highlight was taking the world's longest escalator up to the mid-levels. Also from the mid-levels we walked around to join the throngs of weekend tourists to take the famous Peak tram to the top for that great view over the island and surrounding area.

Soho streetscape

Hobbes on Stanley's Main Beach

Lifeguard tower at Repulse Bay

To top off our stay in Hong Kong we dropped the pace a bit and spent a relaxing day down on the south side of Hong Kong island visiting Stanley and Repulse Bay. In contrast to our trip to Lantau Island, it was a perfect sunny day and the best part was rolling our jeans and sleeping on the beach soaking up the rays - although Hobbes was tempted to strip right down and plunge into what would have been freezing water (such a Piscean!).

Connaught Road, Central

South Korean farmers protesting against the WTO

Soon after this we had our passports returned with our shiny new Chinese and Indian visas which meant we could start to think about moving on (and back to the mainland...). So despite the temptation of joining in the anti-WTO protesting fun, we decided it was time to depart and booked ourselves on a boat to Macau.

A Backpackers Paradise - Guangxi

Our last stops before arriving back at the east coast were in Guangxi province the less well known and significantly more rugged western cousin of Guangdong.

It often seems that the most interesting travel events occur not at the destinations, but on the public transport between them. Once again this was true for this leg of our journey, perhaps not surprisingly as between Dali and Longsheng we spent 55 hours without a home and two nights in a row sleeping on trains.

A couple of old dudes in Ping An Village

The second of our back to back train trips we shared our bunks with a grandmother and two of her grandkids who at first seemed extremely cute, although unfotunately this impression didn't last for long... it may have had something to do with the fact that they were continuously fed a diet of sugar (not helped by Aimes giving them 'darn tarts') but before long they were alternating between screaming with joy and bawling their eyes out on about a 10 minute cycle (for a 19 hour train trip!). Perhaps the highlights were them using the bin that sits between the beds as a toilet and them screwing up mandarin and then throwing it all over the window to make them stick. Although they did have some redeeming cute qualities including using Pepsi bottles as dolls (even if they did bounce them on the ground a lot).

The other interesting sight on the train trip was quite a few men washing their feet and socks in the sink before they went to bed, this despite the fact that they looked as though they hadn't showered in weeks - why, we do not know?

The Dragon's Backbone Rice Terraces

So after being dropped at the Guilin North Station (we stopped at the main station for 30 minutes but they wouldn't let us off??) it was only another 2 hours on a bus before we arrived at Longsheng in northern Guangxi. So after about 55 hours without a home we finally arrived in Longsheng and after a bit of walking around town managed to find a decent hotel.

More Dragon's Backbone Rice Terraces

Zhuang women sensing a sale is imminent...

.

Longsheng is not much of a town, though it is located in quite a nice valley with a stream running through the middle, perhaps it is the standard Chinese small town architecture, or more likely the rubbish? Anyways, the reason for coming up here was to visit the Dragon's Backbone Rice Terraces, which are constructed on the top and running down the sides of a 1200m high mountain range. Why people decided this land was prime rice cultivation area we do not know, but their decision required some amazing feats of construction and irrigation to make it happen.

Unfortunately for us we didn't see the terraces in their best light as the rice had been harvested and there was a pretty thick haze that day, yet despite this they were still quite amazing. Every piece of land has been covered with them, even the very peaks of the hills.

Long Ji Village

Ping An Village

As with most tourist sights in China the main vantage points were packed with Chinese tourists, doing the usual things like being loud, walking in front of your photos and pushing. But it didn't take long to get away from them (partially because the sedan chairs they were carried up in couldn't handle the off road :) A number of small villages are scattered amongst the terraces and we did a bit of walk through them (after a false start almost had us walking into the next valley). It was really nice to be able to make your own way through the rice fields and see some relatively remote villages which are all perched precariously on the side of the mountain.

We were quite impressed with the fact that we managed to find our way back down to the road without falling into a rice paddy or being bitten by one of the many dogs and were even able to flag down a bus heading to Longsheng (we must be almost fluent at reading chinese :P). The bus back was a bit slow as at one point we were stuck behind another bus which had taken out some powerlines which were now entangled in its roof rack - fortunately no electrocutions ensued!

The view from our guesthouse in Yangshou

.

From Longsheng we headed back down to Guilin where we had considered spending some time, although it didn't take long for this idea to be scrapped when we got there and couldn't see much further than the other side of the road! So it was straight on another bus and down to Yangshou.

A Yangshou laneway

Yangshou is described as a backpackers mecca, and it is true that it is full of tourists, although it is nothing like Koh San Road (Bangkok) or De Tham Street (Saigon) when it comes to ghetto-ness. Still it does have several aspects which make it quitessential backpacker land, pirated DVDs, pizza, lots of bars with very long happy hours and people ripping you off left right and centre. The internet cafe had a piece of paper with the price written on it which was flipped over to reveal a cheaper price when you walked out in protest of the first...

Anyways, the relaxed atmosphere, warmer weather, cheap food and beers and redily available DVDs made for a very nice change from the previous couple of months and resulted in not a great deal getting done for the first couple of days. We even continued to use the pool table on the rooftop of our hostel despite the fact that the felt was of the shag pile variety, the legs were precariously balanced on piles of old tiles and your line of sight was obscured by hanging washing. It was also nice to have a few familiar faces about as it seemed quite a lot of the people we had met in western China (one couple, the Isr-aliens, Miki and Riki) had stayed on in Yangshou longer than planned and Patrick (from our Mongolia trip) were passing through just as we were. It makes for quite a change to walk past a cafe and see familiar faces after so many weeks of just the two of us :)

Karsts along the Yulong River

In amongst all the DVDs, pool, pizza and beer we did mange to drag ourselves on a bit of a bike ride through the limestone scenery which surrounds Yangshou. The scenery is truely amazing, even after having seen similar limestone karst formations in Krabi (Thailand), Vang Vieng (Laos), Halong Bay (Vietnam) and Hon Chong (Mekong Delta, Vietnam), the sheer scale of the karsts around Yangshou is incomparable. They continue for the entire length of the road between Guilin and Yangshou (80km) and as far as the eye can see from the top of any mountain that we scaled.

The Li River

In contrast to the pool table at our guesthouse the bikes on offer are pretty good quality, featuring dual suspension and gears that actually work. After riding out to Moon Hill, one of the more renowned hills, and being followed up all the 1000 steps by a woman trying to sell us water (she did succeed in the end, at a bit of a premium above the usual price - 'I have to carry up hill! very difficult!'), we decided to ride the length of a small creek through some small villages.

The road was very nice, flat, few cars, rice fields all around with the ever-present karsts rising between them (the entreprenaurial spirit wasn't far away though as a farmer wanted 2 yuan for Hobbes to take a photo of his buffalo!). However it wasn't long until we reached our first obstacle which was a river crossing without a bridge. Unsurprisingly though there was someone nearby eager to raft us across ('bamboo!bamboo!'), and after managing to precariously balance our bikes on the raft and get on without tipping them into the river we were soon across. The river is popular for rafting (the slow gentle, not white water variety) and there was a woman in the middle selling drinks who immediately started yelling 'pee jyo' (beer) when she saw Hobbes - his reputation obviously proceeds him :)

Our bikes cross the Yulong River

After passing this obstacle a few more were thrown up including several small villages with several roads in and out. After stretching our extremely limited Mandarin to it's limits we managed to negotiate the first couple, until we came to the final one where we encountered 2 other western couples riding in various directions trying to find a way through. It seemed the village was a bit of a blackhole swallowing up tourists.

Lost?

After overcoming this last obstacle we arrived at our destination - a 600 year old stone bridge, which while impressively old and in great condition seemed a little bit of a let down after riding so far :(

The 600 year old Dragon Bridge

Back streets of Xing Ping

On our last day we took a bus up to the small town of Xing Ping some distance up the Li River and rented a boat (and driver) for an hour to see what the river cruise thing was all about. It seems a Li River cruise is the thing to do in these parts, something which was confirmed once we hit the water as there is a constant stream of massive tour boats heading down from Guilin. The boats were so close together that they almost seemed to form a continuous train, and some must surely run aground as there are fast flowing parts where the navigatable river is barely as wide as the boats. Anyways, there are this many tour boats for the very good reason that the river is very picturesque, if a little cold on the day we went. The stretch of river we went on is home of the scenery depicted on the 20 Yuan note, and our boat driver made sure we had our picture taken in front of it in true Chinese style!

The Li River obscured by us

A queue of Guilin tour boats on the Li River

Anyways, only 4 weeks left in China now, sure they will fly, Aimes is very excited that our next stop is Hong Kong and some western comforts... just another 17 hour train trip to negotiate first...