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by Brian
Bulkowski
In November of 2004 I took a trip to China. Although I had talked to many people about what I might find there, I was deeply surprised - China's development of internal tourism has made independant travel much easier - although the Chinese all believe you can only travel by tour group.
Kobe
Kyoto
Osaka
Beijing
Beijing - forbidden city
Great Wall - Badaling
Pingyao
Pingyao - Zhengou Temple
Xi'an
Xi'an - Terracotta Warriors
Taiyuan
Harbin
Kunming
Lijiang
Lijiang - Jade Dragon Mountain
Yangshou
Guangzhou
Hong Kong
A few words about the trip
My initial idea was to do some motorcycling in China. I was inspired by
Carla King's dispatches from China . Several
things happened to cool my jets. I had planned to travel in June and
July after quitting my job at Liberate
Technologies, but in the week before I suffered a serious bicycle
accident which gave me a concussion and some kind of groin muscle pull.
The leg problem took about a month to heal, and threw off my schedule,
at which point my landlord decided to sell the house I was renting, and
the summer seemed to unfold from one crisis to the next. I'll admit
that Carla's description of travelling in China left me a bit uncertain
as how to proceed. Also, I couldn't get a clear answer as to the
legalities of driving in China, despite all my research - and the
unknown risk level bothered me. Still, I hoped that the folks at Ad-mo
Tours could hook me up with a bike for a week, just for some
lightweight travel, but arranging a single-person tour takes more lead
time then I ended up having (they need a bit over 2 months). So,
finally, I just travelled city to city, mostly via plane.
My city choices generally followed the "what you've got to see in china" tourist attractions. After this trip, I feel like I could go back and do some real off-beat, off-road travelling. It's a big country with many regions and interests, and scratching the surface takes a few weeks even at high speed. I didn't get far enough west (I kept trying to get to Dunhuang, but the flights were difficult --- and I never really tried for Tibet).
I had the most fun in Yangshou. As you can see from the pictures, it's gorgeous. It's very easy to get away from the tourists - don't be in town between 2pm and 6pm when the boat tours from Guilin come through, and visit "westerner street" only as much as you want. Don't stay directly on that street. They cater to the interested, independant traveller - grab a bike and a map and set out, take classes in cooking, caligraphy, music, language. Grab a guide and go rock climbing. The best for culture was Pingyao - a little tourism, but many sites in town open for visitors, and the town is not reconstructed. Scratch the surface and it's the real 3000 year old deal. Kunming and Lijiang had a great feel, but were disappointments. Lijiang post-earthquake reconstruction has more in common with Disneyland than anywhere I've been - but it is very beautiful. Xi'an and Beijing were must-sees, and I found Xi'an infinitaly more pleasurable of the two - more manable, more cultural interest (the Muslim factor). Harbin is a great off-beat city, very light tourism, extraordinary feel and architecture, but little "to do". Hong Kong was fun for a couple days, but I think is best visited if you have friends to both put you up and take you out.
The portion in Japan was ostensibly to visit my mother, whose two-year contract teaching at Shoin University will be up in early 2005. We ended up seeing a bit of Kyoto during the beginning of the "leaf season", when all of Japan oohs and aahs at the turning japanese maple leaves at the various temples. We also listened to a lot of jazz in Kobe and Osaka - two of the most renouned jazz towns in all of Japan. Good fun.
A few notes for the for the independant budget-but-not-student traveller. Frommer's new China guidebook is gold - get it and be happy (my one note is that the section author for Yunan is overenthusiastic - Kunming and Lijiang are overstated). If you want to learn some emergency travelling Chinese, learn Mandrin (aka "Standard Chinese"), and get a private tutor for a few sessions before you go. There is no way to make yourself understood by simply using tapes and books - the tones aren't the worst part, it's the extra phonemes (X vs SH, ZH vs J). Travel will be cheap (especially for europeans), thus allowing you great flexibility. In the off season, air tickets can always be purchased in advance for between $40 and $100 (depending on length of flight) either the same day or a few days in advance. Good hotels can easily be found in the $25-$50 range (except in Beijing) - basic clean hotels down to $10-$15. Hiring a car for the afternoon costs about $25, and about $50 for the day (depending on mileage) - much easier than dealing with tour bus operators. Getting off the beaten track involves bus travel, which is much easier than it sounds *assuming you have some survival chinese*.
I will be posting my detailed notes that I wrote on the road soon - let's say by early January, 2005.
My travelling technology load was pretty light. I had a GPS unit, but rarely used it. My camera was a new Canon S500, with two 1GB chips, three battery packs, and the stock charger. My communication and writing gear was a trusty Palm Tungsten W with a Palm external keyboard. This is a tri-band GSM system, so roamed via GPRS, so I was able to check my email in some cities (yes for Beijing, Xi'an, Harbin, Guangzhou, Hong Kong. No for Pingyao, Kunming, Lijiang, Guilin/Yangshou.) I also had my long-suffering GSM worldphone, an Ericsson R520m, that I had bought before USA went GSM. I bought a Chinese GSM chip and used that as a phone.
This page was authored in the very simple Mozilla,
The albums were organized using PIE Studio 2.11.
Color correction was done using Curvemeister and photoshop
The albums were creating using JAlbum
In November of 2004 I took a trip to China. Although I had talked to many people about what I might find there, I was deeply surprised - China's development of internal tourism has made independant travel much easier - although the Chinese all believe you can only travel by tour group.
The Pictures
I ended up taking about 1400 pictures. What follows is the "cut of 500". I've organized the pictures by city, in a chronological list.Kobe
Kyoto
Osaka
Beijing
Beijing - forbidden city
Great Wall - Badaling
Pingyao
Pingyao - Zhengou Temple
Xi'an
Xi'an - Terracotta Warriors
Taiyuan
Harbin
Kunming
Lijiang
Lijiang - Jade Dragon Mountain
Yangshou
Guangzhou
Hong Kong
A few words about the trip
My initial idea was to do some motorcycling in China. I was inspired by
Carla King's dispatches from China . Several
things happened to cool my jets. I had planned to travel in June and
July after quitting my job at Liberate
Technologies, but in the week before I suffered a serious bicycle
accident which gave me a concussion and some kind of groin muscle pull.
The leg problem took about a month to heal, and threw off my schedule,
at which point my landlord decided to sell the house I was renting, and
the summer seemed to unfold from one crisis to the next. I'll admit
that Carla's description of travelling in China left me a bit uncertain
as how to proceed. Also, I couldn't get a clear answer as to the
legalities of driving in China, despite all my research - and the
unknown risk level bothered me. Still, I hoped that the folks at Ad-mo
Tours could hook me up with a bike for a week, just for some
lightweight travel, but arranging a single-person tour takes more lead
time then I ended up having (they need a bit over 2 months). So,
finally, I just travelled city to city, mostly via plane.My city choices generally followed the "what you've got to see in china" tourist attractions. After this trip, I feel like I could go back and do some real off-beat, off-road travelling. It's a big country with many regions and interests, and scratching the surface takes a few weeks even at high speed. I didn't get far enough west (I kept trying to get to Dunhuang, but the flights were difficult --- and I never really tried for Tibet).
I had the most fun in Yangshou. As you can see from the pictures, it's gorgeous. It's very easy to get away from the tourists - don't be in town between 2pm and 6pm when the boat tours from Guilin come through, and visit "westerner street" only as much as you want. Don't stay directly on that street. They cater to the interested, independant traveller - grab a bike and a map and set out, take classes in cooking, caligraphy, music, language. Grab a guide and go rock climbing. The best for culture was Pingyao - a little tourism, but many sites in town open for visitors, and the town is not reconstructed. Scratch the surface and it's the real 3000 year old deal. Kunming and Lijiang had a great feel, but were disappointments. Lijiang post-earthquake reconstruction has more in common with Disneyland than anywhere I've been - but it is very beautiful. Xi'an and Beijing were must-sees, and I found Xi'an infinitaly more pleasurable of the two - more manable, more cultural interest (the Muslim factor). Harbin is a great off-beat city, very light tourism, extraordinary feel and architecture, but little "to do". Hong Kong was fun for a couple days, but I think is best visited if you have friends to both put you up and take you out.
The portion in Japan was ostensibly to visit my mother, whose two-year contract teaching at Shoin University will be up in early 2005. We ended up seeing a bit of Kyoto during the beginning of the "leaf season", when all of Japan oohs and aahs at the turning japanese maple leaves at the various temples. We also listened to a lot of jazz in Kobe and Osaka - two of the most renouned jazz towns in all of Japan. Good fun.
A few notes for the for the independant budget-but-not-student traveller. Frommer's new China guidebook is gold - get it and be happy (my one note is that the section author for Yunan is overenthusiastic - Kunming and Lijiang are overstated). If you want to learn some emergency travelling Chinese, learn Mandrin (aka "Standard Chinese"), and get a private tutor for a few sessions before you go. There is no way to make yourself understood by simply using tapes and books - the tones aren't the worst part, it's the extra phonemes (X vs SH, ZH vs J). Travel will be cheap (especially for europeans), thus allowing you great flexibility. In the off season, air tickets can always be purchased in advance for between $40 and $100 (depending on length of flight) either the same day or a few days in advance. Good hotels can easily be found in the $25-$50 range (except in Beijing) - basic clean hotels down to $10-$15. Hiring a car for the afternoon costs about $25, and about $50 for the day (depending on mileage) - much easier than dealing with tour bus operators. Getting off the beaten track involves bus travel, which is much easier than it sounds *assuming you have some survival chinese*.
I will be posting my detailed notes that I wrote on the road soon - let's say by early January, 2005.
My travelling technology load was pretty light. I had a GPS unit, but rarely used it. My camera was a new Canon S500, with two 1GB chips, three battery packs, and the stock charger. My communication and writing gear was a trusty Palm Tungsten W with a Palm external keyboard. This is a tri-band GSM system, so roamed via GPRS, so I was able to check my email in some cities (yes for Beijing, Xi'an, Harbin, Guangzhou, Hong Kong. No for Pingyao, Kunming, Lijiang, Guilin/Yangshou.) I also had my long-suffering GSM worldphone, an Ericsson R520m, that I had bought before USA went GSM. I bought a Chinese GSM chip and used that as a phone.
This page was authored in the very simple Mozilla,
The albums were organized using PIE Studio 2.11.
Color correction was done using Curvemeister and photoshop
The albums were creating using JAlbum