Adventures in the Chinese countryside

Phew....where do I begin.

It's 7:30 PM and I'm sitting in an Internet cafe in a town called Jiujiang, which is north of Nanchang and on the Yangtze (sp?) river. I'm sure you're wondering how I ended up here.. (so am I, to be honest!)

We asked in our hostel in Shanghai if we could get the train to Hong Kong from Nanchang. You can't book train tickets from another city in this country - you have to actually be IN the city. It's ridiculous. So we planned to arrive in Nanchang today, book tickets to HK for Thursday night, and then have a few days to mess around in the countryside before heading down there. The woman at the hostel booked our tickets to Nanchang and reassured us that we could get the train to HK from there.

So we embark on our 11 hour train journey from Shanghai - this time we had a hard sleeper instead of a soft sleeper and it was far less luxurious!!! The train was completely open and there was 3 layers of beds. Luckily we boarded early and managed to get two of the low bunks so we wouldn't have to climb up to the top bunks!! The Chinese people found it quite hilarious that there were two Western girls on our train and basically stared at us for most of the journey. One girl tried to talk to us and would repeat everything we said back to the rest of the train in Chinese and they would have a good laugh. We're getting kind of use to this treatment by now!!

I managed toge to get a bit of sleep on the train and it went by a lot faster than I had anticipated. The train had been stopping a lot and we had no idea where we were so we didn't get off the train until one of the guards came and told us that this was our stop!

It was pissing it down with rain when we left the station in Nanchang. It was 6 am and the ticket office was closed so we got bundled into a little cafe opposite the station. Well, I say cafe, of course it's not really a cafe!! We asked for coffee (kafei) but they didn't sell it so we settled for Xuebi (Sprite) but decided to give the local delicacies which were on offer a miss. It was a family-run place and they all sat down with us at our table and had a long conversation with us, during which they offered to let us stay at their house. It's kind of funny here - a lot of people think that if we don't understand them when they speak Chinese to us, that we will understand if they write what they're saying down in Chinese characters. A lot of the people we've met don't know pinyin so it's been a bit of a struggle on all sides at times!!

Anyway.. we spent about an hour trying to figure out where to get tickets from and then about an hour queuing up for tickets. We find out that the train doesn't go to HK from Nanchang and so we have to go to Shenzhen instead. We got a bit flustered and ended up booking tickets for tonight - I had to go back and re-queue to change them for Wednesday instead. We felt a bit better after booking our tickets for the train - at least we'll be headed in the right direction. We were soaking wet and freezing cold and didn't really know what to do with ourselves so we tried to book into a hotel for the night, but the prices were extortionate (well, comparitively!!). As tempting as it was to whip out the Mastercard, we braved the rain again and walked around trying to find a bus that would take us to a town which was on the map in Liz's Lonely Planet guide called Jiujiang. There wasn't any info about the town but we decided to give it a go. We found a bus which was filled with local men who shouted 'Yin guo ren?!?' (English?!?) when we got on the bus - they all found it really funny. The bus took about 2 hours or so and when we arrived we faced the same problems as everywhere...language barriers and no idea what we're doing!! We thought about continuing on to another town called Lushan but we couldn't find a bus. The buses here make as much sense as the trains - there's just random coaches scattered around and you have to go and ask each one if they're going where you want to go!! Luckily a woman snatched us out of the street and took us to a travel agency where a girl spoke some English and she helped us get sorted out. Lushan sounded very expensive (and after another look at Liz's Lonely Planet, perhaps not a place we would like to stay overnight) so we asked them about other options. After about half an hour, we had agreed a price for 2 nights at the hotel next door as well as a day trip to an adventure camp place at a lake tomorrow. No idea what we're letting ourselves in for but it looks quite fun.

We had a good nap at the hotel - it was sooo nice to just have somewhere to kip and have a shower - we were feeling pretty miserable by this point!! We got a taxi into town around 5:30 and I picked up some trainers for about 4 or 5 pounds for the adventure place tomorrow. We couldn't find anywhere to eat for ages but eventually sidled down an alleyway and found a place that the locals seemed to eat in - basically you picked your own meats and veg and they cooked it all up for you. It's a bit stranger than it sounds though - luckily a woman took us under her wing and helped us with it all. The food was ridiculously spicy but really nice. It hit the spot - we hadn't really eaten a meal for a couple of days so it was nice to have some real food.

That brings us up to now - I'm just sat in an Internet cafe, about to head back to the hotel for an early night. We're leaving at 8 am tomorrow morning for this crazy adventure place. Should be interesting.

Hmmm what else... Shanghai was really different to Beijing. I'm trying to think what we did there!! My memory's a bit of a blur. On our first day, we just walked around the Putuo district (where we were staying) for a few hours and then came back for a bit of a rest. In the evening, we headed out into town and went up the Oriental Pearl tower which was amazing. We went right to the very top and the views were incredible, I've got loads of amazing pictures. It started to get a bit late so we headed back towards the hostel in search of some quick food. We ended up at the 'Be Good for You Teahouse' across the road which was very busy - seems like the place for the local people of about my age to hang out and play cards and have ice cream floats and stuff!! It was cute. On our way there, both Liz and I nearly got mugged by two different people. Obviously the area we were staying in wasn't that nice - we haven't had any problems anywhere else in China so far.

This is going to have to be a quick summary because our time is running out in the internet cafe.. The next day, Emily (from summer school) arrived at our hostel and we headed out in Shanghai with her. We walked around the Bund area as well as the shopping areas on Nanjing Street. Emily got a call from Sarah (another girl from summer school) who was meant to be flying from Shanghai but had missed her flight - we made plans to meet her somewhere. In the evening, we went to the Old Town where we got some very strange looks and I got yelled at for taken pictures of some of the locals - they weren't very pleased. Emily and I tried some street food - tentacles on a stick!! Next we got a taxi to Yuyuan street in search of a steamed bun restaurant but instead ended up on a seafood place where all they serve is crab and crayfish....it was amazing!!!! They bring you bowls of them and you have to crack the shells and pick ou the meat yourself. They even give you plastic gloves and aprons! It was really funny. After that, we wandered down a bit further and found a nice outdoor restaurant where we graized on some pork buns and rice jellies over some oolong tea. It was really nice there but there were quite a few Westerners as it was in the hotel district. We said goodbye to Emily and Sarah that night before bed as they were heading off the next morning.

On Sunday, we got up early and went to the Jade Buddha temple which was overrun with tourists. We'd read that it was one of few Buddhist monasteries in Shanghai that was still practicing. It was still practicing but unfortunately the tourism had kinda killed it. We got invited into a posh shop upstairs which we noticed they only invited Westerners too - they tried to sell us loads of memorabilia and sculptures which had been blessed - they all costs thousands or tens of thousands of yuan!! Yeah right!!

We found our way to the tube station and headed back east. We managed to find Yuyuan gardens using our mapreading skills which turned out to be a really cute shopping area. We spent quite a while there and sampled some more local foods, like some strange fish balls and baby octupus. It was getting late and we rushed back to the hotel to get ready to head off to Shanghai South railway station in search of our next adventure!!

Right..time to go. can't imagine I'll be on the net again before Hong Kong! Bye everyone!