Chlidonias Goes To Asia, part three: 2013-2014
- Thread starter Chlidonias
- Start date
they stop at roadside restaurants, petrol stations, etc. If need be they will stop just anywhere if someone really needs to go. The toilets in the places they stop are, well, not nice.....
On long trips (say, eight or ten hours) there is a meal break at some restaurant somewhere for half an hour. On shorter trips they just stop for toilet breaks.
On long trips (say, eight or ten hours) there is a meal break at some restaurant somewhere for half an hour. On shorter trips they just stop for toilet breaks.
nanoboy
Well-Known Member
Has anyone tried to rob or fleece you yet?
Some folks went to China a few weeks ago as part of a delegation from where I work. In true 'I am a westerner and have no street sense', they reported the following incidents:
- a couple took a rickshaw in Shanghai and the driver took them to an alley where a gang was waiting to rob them
- a guy forgot some gifts in the back of a taxi, and the driver was seen rummaging through his bags for driving off (despite the man running after the car shouting loudly and arms flailing everywhere)
- a guy took an unlicensed cab from a swanky hotel; the cabbie took him to a room where a gang terrorised him and threatened to cut off his gonads if he didn't cough up some cash (he was set free to like $100 or something small like that)
erm, in all honesty I have met with almost literally no bad behaviour whilst in China. Everyone is the picture of virtue. There has been a couple of very minor incidences involving money for buses and the like but only in the region of a couple of dollars, and quite likely they derived from my own misunderstandings. Mostly when it comes to paying for things, everyone here is extremely honest about what I owe.
In somewhere like Thailand or Malaysia I would never leave my bags sitting anywhere but here I am happy to leave them sitting in the bus station while I go to the toilet, for example. (One of the downsides of travelling alone is that you have no-one to watch your stuff if there isn't room inside the toilets for you and your bags at the same time!). Maybe I just look like the sort of person the bad sorts don't want to mess with?
There are some common sense things everyone should follow though. Never put your bags in the boot of the taxi for example. Put them in the back seat, and make sure both the side doors are open while doing this so the driver can't easily drive off before you get into the passenger seat. Usually the reason people get into trouble when they're travelling is because they are stupid or do stupid things.
nanoboy
Well-Known Member
Well that's great that you have been keeping safe and smart. A friend of mine had his suitcase stolen from a hostel in Uzbekistan a few years ago: he tied a shoelace from his toe to his suitcase, but when he woke up, the suitcase was gone and the shoelace was cut.
My brother had his backpack slashed on the subway in Caracas a few years ago (standard robbery: while on a packed carriage, your bags get slashed with a razor, they rummage through your bags stealing stuff, and you are none the wiser).
Will be interested to hear both about the Zoo and what's on offer in the bird market if you make to either/both.
a bit of a recap and new developments up to how things stand today:
After getting a fever in Lijiang, I made it to Kunming where I stayed at the Cloudland Youth Hostel....for the next six nights. For the first couple of those nights I retained the coughing and the splitting headache, and my body felt like I had been severely beaten. Every bone in my body was sore. I didn't want to go to a Chinese hospital because I figured they would just inject me with penicillin, force handfuls of pills down my throat and feed me pangolin soup. I'd rather just sweat it out – but I also promised myself that if it got worse I would drag myself off to the doctor. The third day in Kunming the shakes came back so bad that when I was eating I had to hold my wrist steady with the other hand in order to guide the chopsticks to the food. Not pleasant. But doctors? Plaah, Never!! The next day the headache was almost gone, my body wasn't sore any more apart for my back (so I could actually walk properly again like a normal person instead of shuffling slowly along like an arthritic zombie!); still had the cough though.
My little problem was that my visa was due to expire on the 28 November, just a few days away. My intention had been to extend it in Leshan just south of Chengdu but now I didn't know if I would make it that far. Extending it in Lijiang was also an option, but that was a nine hour bus ride away. Third option was doing it in Kunming, but extending visas in capital cities is always cited as being a very bad idea because of all the extra stress. I wavered back and forth on what to do, but it was more or less sorted by a terrible bit of news about new laws regarding visa extensions which I had not heard of previously. The new rule says that visa extensions can only add up to a maximum of as many days as were in the original visa. My original visa was 45 days (luckily), my first visa extension was 30 days, which meant that the second extension could only be 15 days maximum. China changes its visa rules like Dennis Rodman changes his hair-styles and this news basically screwed all the rest of my China plans completely, and it also sealed where I had to go for the extension. One of my bags was still in Chengdu, so I would have to be as close to where that was as possible when I got the extension in order to get it quickly (namely Leshan, which is only about two hours by bus from Chengdu).
The last two days in Kunming I hadn't been too bad, just a coming-and-going headache and the cough which doesn't seem to be getting better, but otherwise I was pretty good. I got an overnight train ticket from Kunming to Leshan for the evening of the 25 November. After getting the ticket I discovered that there isn't actually a train station in Leshan – instead you get dropped off in some other station an hour by bus from Leshan. Still, it is several hours closer than continuing all the way to Chengdu, and from Chengdu I'd still have to get a bus to Leshan anyway so I still win.
The only thing I managed to do in the whole of Yunnan was see the snub-nosed monkeys, but they were totally worth getting sick over! In Kunming I did absolutely nothing and saw absolutely nothing. No zoo, no bird market, no museum, no Zoological Institute, no wild birds (except tree sparrows and white wagtails). Maybe on another visit.
I almost didn't make the train. I went to the bus stop round the corner from the hostel and waited, and waited, and waited. No bus came. I knew the longer I left it the more chance there was of missing the train, so I caved and went for a taxi, but none would stop. It really was ridiculous. Eventually I grabbed a motorbike. It was the first motorbike taxi I've used this trip, and it turned out to be the absolute slowest motorbike taxi I have ever been on! I probably could have run to the station faster if I hadn't been out of sorts. I got to the train literally ten minutes before it was due to leave. It was then a fifteen hour ride to a mini-city called Jia Jiang (the “Leshan” of the train ticket). I arrived there about 10am and had an extended conversation with a private taxi driver who tried to make me accept a 200 Yuan ride in his car to Leshan, and finally tried to charge me 30 Yuan to the bus station instead. I'm glad I was no longer feeling sick otherwise I would have been getting really stressed out. After a while I got sick of him and went and found a real taxi which took me to the bus station for 5 Yuan where I got a bus for 8.50 Yuan.
Jia Jiang is about an hour from Leshan (confusingly in Jia Jiang I passed the Leshan City Bank or somesuch....if I hadn't found out in advance that the train didn't actually go to Leshan I would have ended up very confused). Once I got to Leshan I found the Home Inn (at 406 Jiading Middle Road) because for the visa extension one needs to be booked in the not-as-cheap-as-backpackers-prefer-type-accommodations. It wasn't a horrendously expensive hotel but a bit more expensive than what I prefer at 165 Yuan (NZ$33) per night. After checking in and getting my accommodation slip I went straight to the PSB Office and filled in the forms for my visa extension. What I had heard about the new visa rules turned out to be true – the extensions can only total the amount of days of one's original visa. The lady misread my first extension a little and thought I'd been given 28 days (in fact it ran from the 28 Oct to 28 Nov which is 31 days) so gave me 17 days instead of 15 which was slightly better than I had been expecting. But still, it means my visa runs out on the 15 December and then no more China. I have to work out an itinerary for the time I have left – I think basically I'll be able to fit in the attempt for Guizhou snub-nosed monkeys and that's about it (my fight leaves from Shanghai due to earlier arrangements). At least I'm not going to miss not being able to speak Chinese! I mean I'm going to be in other countries where I don't speak the language but there just seems to be something much more difficult about not speaking Chinese compared to not speaking other languages. I don't know what it is. However my very next country is going to be Malaysia where they speak Malaysian and English, both of which I do speak so that's a bit of a bonus.
The visa application takes two days, so today I went to see the Giant Buddha. I'm not normally a “go see the local artifact/attraction from Lonely Planet” guy, but wow that was stupendous. Even the Batman would have had to take a step back if that one came to life and attacked Gotham. I can honestly say I have never seen a bigger Buddha in my life. Very very impressive. I took my binoculars as well of course. Can you believe I haven't even opened my bird book for a full two weeks! The Buddha is carved from a cliff-face and the surrounding crags are covered in trees, and the trees are full of birds. Mostly common stuff but that really beautiful common stuff which I haven't seen for a while, like Pekin robins and yellow-bellied tits. Oriental greenfinches were the first I'd seen in China, and a wryneck was only the second one ever that I've seen. Over the river at the Buddha's feet were hawking pale martins which were my first lifer for ages.
I also found a set of scales today, the first time I've got to weigh myself since leaving New Zealand. I've lost about fifteen kilograms of muscle, which is sort of what I felt like I'd lost but at the same time I thought I would have lost more just recently with being sick. I know my legs have shed a lot of muscle since being sick (before that they were holding up OK without the gym thanks to all the mountain walking!).
After getting a fever in Lijiang, I made it to Kunming where I stayed at the Cloudland Youth Hostel....for the next six nights. For the first couple of those nights I retained the coughing and the splitting headache, and my body felt like I had been severely beaten. Every bone in my body was sore. I didn't want to go to a Chinese hospital because I figured they would just inject me with penicillin, force handfuls of pills down my throat and feed me pangolin soup. I'd rather just sweat it out – but I also promised myself that if it got worse I would drag myself off to the doctor. The third day in Kunming the shakes came back so bad that when I was eating I had to hold my wrist steady with the other hand in order to guide the chopsticks to the food. Not pleasant. But doctors? Plaah, Never!! The next day the headache was almost gone, my body wasn't sore any more apart for my back (so I could actually walk properly again like a normal person instead of shuffling slowly along like an arthritic zombie!); still had the cough though.
My little problem was that my visa was due to expire on the 28 November, just a few days away. My intention had been to extend it in Leshan just south of Chengdu but now I didn't know if I would make it that far. Extending it in Lijiang was also an option, but that was a nine hour bus ride away. Third option was doing it in Kunming, but extending visas in capital cities is always cited as being a very bad idea because of all the extra stress. I wavered back and forth on what to do, but it was more or less sorted by a terrible bit of news about new laws regarding visa extensions which I had not heard of previously. The new rule says that visa extensions can only add up to a maximum of as many days as were in the original visa. My original visa was 45 days (luckily), my first visa extension was 30 days, which meant that the second extension could only be 15 days maximum. China changes its visa rules like Dennis Rodman changes his hair-styles and this news basically screwed all the rest of my China plans completely, and it also sealed where I had to go for the extension. One of my bags was still in Chengdu, so I would have to be as close to where that was as possible when I got the extension in order to get it quickly (namely Leshan, which is only about two hours by bus from Chengdu).
The last two days in Kunming I hadn't been too bad, just a coming-and-going headache and the cough which doesn't seem to be getting better, but otherwise I was pretty good. I got an overnight train ticket from Kunming to Leshan for the evening of the 25 November. After getting the ticket I discovered that there isn't actually a train station in Leshan – instead you get dropped off in some other station an hour by bus from Leshan. Still, it is several hours closer than continuing all the way to Chengdu, and from Chengdu I'd still have to get a bus to Leshan anyway so I still win.
The only thing I managed to do in the whole of Yunnan was see the snub-nosed monkeys, but they were totally worth getting sick over! In Kunming I did absolutely nothing and saw absolutely nothing. No zoo, no bird market, no museum, no Zoological Institute, no wild birds (except tree sparrows and white wagtails). Maybe on another visit.
I almost didn't make the train. I went to the bus stop round the corner from the hostel and waited, and waited, and waited. No bus came. I knew the longer I left it the more chance there was of missing the train, so I caved and went for a taxi, but none would stop. It really was ridiculous. Eventually I grabbed a motorbike. It was the first motorbike taxi I've used this trip, and it turned out to be the absolute slowest motorbike taxi I have ever been on! I probably could have run to the station faster if I hadn't been out of sorts. I got to the train literally ten minutes before it was due to leave. It was then a fifteen hour ride to a mini-city called Jia Jiang (the “Leshan” of the train ticket). I arrived there about 10am and had an extended conversation with a private taxi driver who tried to make me accept a 200 Yuan ride in his car to Leshan, and finally tried to charge me 30 Yuan to the bus station instead. I'm glad I was no longer feeling sick otherwise I would have been getting really stressed out. After a while I got sick of him and went and found a real taxi which took me to the bus station for 5 Yuan where I got a bus for 8.50 Yuan.
Jia Jiang is about an hour from Leshan (confusingly in Jia Jiang I passed the Leshan City Bank or somesuch....if I hadn't found out in advance that the train didn't actually go to Leshan I would have ended up very confused). Once I got to Leshan I found the Home Inn (at 406 Jiading Middle Road) because for the visa extension one needs to be booked in the not-as-cheap-as-backpackers-prefer-type-accommodations. It wasn't a horrendously expensive hotel but a bit more expensive than what I prefer at 165 Yuan (NZ$33) per night. After checking in and getting my accommodation slip I went straight to the PSB Office and filled in the forms for my visa extension. What I had heard about the new visa rules turned out to be true – the extensions can only total the amount of days of one's original visa. The lady misread my first extension a little and thought I'd been given 28 days (in fact it ran from the 28 Oct to 28 Nov which is 31 days) so gave me 17 days instead of 15 which was slightly better than I had been expecting. But still, it means my visa runs out on the 15 December and then no more China. I have to work out an itinerary for the time I have left – I think basically I'll be able to fit in the attempt for Guizhou snub-nosed monkeys and that's about it (my fight leaves from Shanghai due to earlier arrangements). At least I'm not going to miss not being able to speak Chinese! I mean I'm going to be in other countries where I don't speak the language but there just seems to be something much more difficult about not speaking Chinese compared to not speaking other languages. I don't know what it is. However my very next country is going to be Malaysia where they speak Malaysian and English, both of which I do speak so that's a bit of a bonus.
The visa application takes two days, so today I went to see the Giant Buddha. I'm not normally a “go see the local artifact/attraction from Lonely Planet” guy, but wow that was stupendous. Even the Batman would have had to take a step back if that one came to life and attacked Gotham. I can honestly say I have never seen a bigger Buddha in my life. Very very impressive. I took my binoculars as well of course. Can you believe I haven't even opened my bird book for a full two weeks! The Buddha is carved from a cliff-face and the surrounding crags are covered in trees, and the trees are full of birds. Mostly common stuff but that really beautiful common stuff which I haven't seen for a while, like Pekin robins and yellow-bellied tits. Oriental greenfinches were the first I'd seen in China, and a wryneck was only the second one ever that I've seen. Over the river at the Buddha's feet were hawking pale martins which were my first lifer for ages.
I also found a set of scales today, the first time I've got to weigh myself since leaving New Zealand. I've lost about fifteen kilograms of muscle, which is sort of what I felt like I'd lost but at the same time I thought I would have lost more just recently with being sick. I know my legs have shed a lot of muscle since being sick (before that they were holding up OK without the gym thanks to all the mountain walking!).
nanoboy
Well-Known Member
Glad to hear that you are back on your feet again. If I lost 15kg, I would be dead, because that a quarter of my body weight.....
You should post a few pics of your accommodation. Having stayed in just 1 hostel in my life (in Budapest, where I got food poisoning) I am quite curious about what budget accommodation in China looks like.
The giant Buddha is on my bucket list. It looks like you can only get good pics of its scale from the river.
You should post a few pics of your accommodation. Having stayed in just 1 hostel in my life (in Budapest, where I got food poisoning) I am quite curious about what budget accommodation in China looks like.
The giant Buddha is on my bucket list. It looks like you can only get good pics of its scale from the river.
Sorry to hear about your further bad luck; but then at least it means you get a change soon to a location you will hopefully have a lot more luck with!
accommodation in China is generally excellent. The hostels are just like backpacker dorms in, say, NZ or Australia. The main difference is that the bathrooms often have squat toilets as well as the western style ones.
Hotels are a bit different. I don't generally stay in hotels in Australasia so to me they usually seem pretty flash. They almost always have their own bathroom, tv, kettle, towels, etc Most have several (two or more) beds in them, and that's one area where travelling alone costs more (because the cost of the room is for the room, not per person).
As far as I can tell, dorm style backpackers only exist in those cities and towns that are regular backpacker haunts e.g., the capitals such as Chengdu or Kunming and tourist towns like Songpan and Shangri La. Otherwise there are just hotels but they can be pretty cheap, between say 50 and 200 Yuan is normal (NZ$10 and 40).
The Giant Buddha should be on everyone's bucket list (I can say that now I've seen it). It is impressive from whichever angle you view it, but yes I think the best for photography to get the whole scale would be from one of th river boats. From its feet looking straight up though I think makes a good photo too.
Hotels are a bit different. I don't generally stay in hotels in Australasia so to me they usually seem pretty flash. They almost always have their own bathroom, tv, kettle, towels, etc Most have several (two or more) beds in them, and that's one area where travelling alone costs more (because the cost of the room is for the room, not per person).
As far as I can tell, dorm style backpackers only exist in those cities and towns that are regular backpacker haunts e.g., the capitals such as Chengdu or Kunming and tourist towns like Songpan and Shangri La. Otherwise there are just hotels but they can be pretty cheap, between say 50 and 200 Yuan is normal (NZ$10 and 40).
The Giant Buddha should be on everyone's bucket list (I can say that now I've seen it). It is impressive from whichever angle you view it, but yes I think the best for photography to get the whole scale would be from one of th river boats. From its feet looking straight up though I think makes a good photo too.
I probably won't be in Malaysia long -- it was just the cheapest place to fly to from China when I was booking the outward flight for my original visa application back in NZ. Maybe a few weeks. I might take this time to go to Singapore too. Otherwise I'm heading up to Thailand for recovery purposes for a while (which will involve finding a gym to put some muscle back on -- the more muscle I have the better I feel, the more resistance my body has, and the healthier I stay!).
Sorry to hear that you can only stay in China for another 17 days 
I suggest you to try the white-headed langurs in Chongzuo, Guangxi or the Francois's langurs in Mayanghe, Guizhou after your Fanjingshan Trip. And when you are in Guiyang, don't go to the city zoo, it is a terrible place; but if you go to Guangxi, Nanning Zoo is worth visiting
I suggest you to try the white-headed langurs in Chongzuo, Guangxi or the Francois's langurs in Mayanghe, Guizhou after your Fanjingshan Trip. And when you are in Guiyang, don't go to the city zoo, it is a terrible place; but if you go to Guangxi, Nanning Zoo is worth visiting
pssh, only if you consider marbled cats and spotted linsangs to be envy-inducing.......Long enough to potentially see a few things to make me envious, though
Chongzuo was on my original plan until last week! I really want to fit it in but although 17 days sounds like a lot travel times, as you know, add up quickly in China! Fanjingshan is going to take a while to get to from Chengdu. If I can then Chongzuo will make it into the last spurt. I shall have to find out about Mayanghe because that could be a possible alternative.Sorry to hear that you can only stay in China for another 17 days
I suggest you to try the white-headed langurs in Chongzuo, Guangxi or the Francois's langurs in Mayanghe, Guizhou after your Fanjingshan Trip. And when you are in Guiyang, don't go to the city zoo, it is a terrible place; but if you go to Guangxi, Nanning Zoo is worth visiting
I wanted to make a return to Labahe as well, and if I hadn't got sick I would have already been to see the Derbyans in Yunnan and Caohai Lake on the Yunnan/Guizhou border. But such is life.
Don't forget flatheaded cats and the one subspecies of Asiatic Golden Cat I have not (yet) seen!
don't forget I've already seen flat-headed cats in both wild and captivity on previous trips......
How could I, you lucky bastard doesn't make it any less envy-spawning!
doesn't make it any less envy-spawning!
Damn you, why write something like that!
Good luck with both, here's hoping you get to spot a linsang! And it's good to hear you're back on your feet!
I would love to spot a linsang (or band a linsang I guess, depending on species). What I'd really like though is to see slow loris and binturong, both very common animals in southeast Asia and I've never seen either.Damn you, why write something like that!
And it's good to hear you're back on your feet!
I'm still not 100% back to invincibility, but I'm getting there. Hopefully I keep going upwards instead of backwards.
Off to the Air Asia office today to see if I can extend my flight. My current flight (obtained before leaving NZ for visa purposes) is for 10 Dec from Shanghai, and my new visa runs out on 15 Dec. If I can extend the flight to the 15th then I have an extra few days to fit things in, if not then I'm pretty much restricted to just the Guizhou monkeys.