From Kazakhstan to China

15.03.12

Greetings from China!

After having travelled across from Kazakhstan overland to China we have written (in as shorter post as possible) a less than entirely eloquent attempt to cover the huge amount of distance travelled, and diversities in culture encountered within our trip over the past few weeks. 

Post Author Christina

An incredibly daunting task; covering 10 train/bus journeys, over 7000 km in travel, and a good few weeks of photo taking, noodle eating, water guzzeling, and a good deal more hostel checkins than I care to count.

So with so much to get through you will have to excuse the short introduction... and starting with our very cold, but eye opening and exciting end to Kazakhstan I will begin to talk you through our train travel ending in Kunming, China.      

        

Turkistan, Kazakhstan

Turkistan mostly consisted of painting and reading within the haunted hotel in the frozen ghost town that is Turkistan . You could easily imagine eyes behind the paintings that filled the halls of the grand cobweb filled building, with a dining hall and bar area that was incredibly reminiscent of The Shining.

When out and about we had the pleasure of seeing life out in the sticks, experiencing the local cuisine - which is mostly meat - meaning a few failed attempts to every successful dish to say the least,­ making our successful orders all the more delicious, if not expensive.

We also took a look around the famous mosque that we set out to photograph, and briefly walked the streets to witness to our horror tyre fires on street corners with ill educated Kazakh's trying to keep warm by burning anything they could find, with disregard for any health risks or CO2 emissions.

Due to the extreme cold each building with the luxury was pumped full of heating, and to each of these warm and poorly insulated buildings would be huge chimneys that filled the sky with thick black smog. Ice inches thick covered every street and road, with inches of snow on top. Icicles often feet or meters long lined most guttering, blocked many drains and smaller ones still hung from trees and lined the bottoms of cars.

At -29c the cold was extreme enough to penetrate as many gloves as you could fit over one another, and no matter how many layers of thermal clothing we put on for our walk to the bus station on our departure, the cold still brought tears to our eyes and pained our hands and feet. We managed to flag down a taxi, or at least a man in a car - official or not we did not care by that point - just in time as my hair still ever so slightly damp had began to freeze and was a pale shade of grey.

Turkistan - Almaty - Urumqi

After the extreme cold and nomadic nature of Turkistan we were keen to reach Beijing asap. After communications with our friend Roy who was planning to be there around this time too we decided that despite the end of the Chinese New Year celebrations and train rush we would get our tickets across to the Chinese capital no matter what it took. We did not want to stay in Urumqi (a smoggy ugly Chinese city not set up for English travellers) for the sake of waiting on a train ticket 'no time wasting, just straight across' we agreed.

So we got the bus and train back to Almaty and then the train over to Urumqi with full determination towards the exciting destination ahead. We had somewhat of a bad entrance into China with our all important guide book and phrase book confiscated on the boarder crossing, followed by an even more petrifying experience...

After a difficult to follow conversation of part mime and part Russian we were encouraged to leave the train with our bags on board and passports with the passport officials, by the Russian lady in our carriage who was concerned we had not eaten enough and seemed to think we had a two hour stop at the station. We returned to the middle of nowhere station only to find the train had vanished.

My smug 'I told you so' after having expressed my concerns throughout, meant absolutely nothing when returning to the empty station contemplating how we were going to catch up with the train with all our valuables, clothes and more importantly passports when there was only two trains a week. We did not even know which boarder town we were at, nor did we have a Russian or Chinese phrase book. It was absolutely petrifying, and we were close to tears when explaining in a panic the situation (in mime) to a train guard, who to our relief seemed to be miming back that the train was just changing wheels for the Chinese tracks.

As we had hoped the train did in fact arrive two hours after we left it, and we and our new English speaking Kazakh friend that we met at the station cafe (who had had a similar experience) all drew a sigh of relief as the train rolled in, we bundled aboard with uncontrollable delight, exchanged details and got back to our carriages for a well earned snooze.

China

Urumqi - Beijing (02.08.12)

We arrived at Urumqi in good time and with a lot of help from our Kazakh friend we managed to get tickets to Beijing . We did however have to make a real compromise on comfort for the train ride ahead due to the popularity of the route following Chinese New Year. We were not able to get our usual Soft Sleeper tickets, or even Hard Sleeper tickets, or even still Soft Seats; instead we had our 30 hours trip aboard Hard Seats - although to our further dismay upon receiving the tickets we found out that this train was actually 55 hours to Beijing. 'Whatever' we thought. We just wanted to get there, and quickly.

So we checked into a hotel for the 6 hours we had between trains so we could shower and freshen up, and then stocked up at the near by shops, and further prepared ourselves for the gruelling trip ahead.

It was very boring, very slow and very painful. There are only so many ways to sit in a seat, and to our disappointment none of them seemed to be any good for sleeping.

Beijing

Beijing was everything Hattie remembered it being and everything I hoped it would be. The hustle and bustle of Chinese vendors filled the roads that a million bicycles roamed. There were grand temples throughout contrasted by the developed city around them. Everything was clean with little to no snow or ice and the temperature mild, although positively warm compared to what we were used to.

We took in all the sights; The Summer Palace, The Lama Temple, The Temple of Heaven, The Great Wall and many more. We visited a Vegetarian restaurant from the Lonely Planet Chinese Guidebook (we managed to download a Kindle copy to replace our one taken on the boarder), and we took a whole new array of photos that looked very different to our Kazakh snow collection.

Our hostel was great, the food there cheap and good, the stay as a whole was certainly worth the trip across. It was made even better by our meeting with Roy an art friend from Southsea who took us to 798, the art quarter, and an amazing dumpling restaurant which provided without a doubt our best meal of the trip so far.

Beijing South - TaiAn (02.18.12)

TaiAn

TaiAn was our next destination, a small city that strangely had a seaside quality, that was primarily centred around the appeal of the smiling locals, small eating places, but most of all the TaiShan Mountain which had 6666 steps set into the main route up, and promises good health to all who climb it.

We climbed all 6666 steps and it was absolutely beautiful and far more challenging than we had anticipated, and although we thoroughly enjoyed the challenge and marvelled again at the photos of the day, we happily took the cable car down after seeing those walking back down crying in pain, many of whom had to walk backwards to manage. No doubt many could not afford the steep price that the luxury of the cable cart ran at.

TaiShan - Xian (02.20.12)

Xian

Our hostel in Xian was without a doubt the best and most luxurious so far, with little differentiating it from a hotel. Obviously aimed at the high end market, but competitively priced for a collection of positive ratings on hostel booker for its opening few weeks. It was an absolute bargain at around three pound per person in a dorm with an en suit toilet and shower, and all spotless.

The first day we rested our weary legs still tired from the 6666 steps, and the following day we took the bus out to 'The Warriors' that were incredible. It is hard to believe the age of the miraculous statues made of clay; and harder still to believe that they survived partially intact buried deep under the ground, and further still that they were ever buried to begin with.

On the last day before we left we thought it would be fun to get hair cuts. Hattie came away with a nice trim and some 60's feathering - lovely. I was less fortunate and left with a less than straight fringe set way above my eyebrows and a long bob coming below the shoulders about an inch longer on one side. Luckily I have had more than my fair share of bad hair cuts so it was not such a misery for me, although you will see a gap in Hattie's photos.

All photos of myself were banned until the fringe reached an acceptable length, of course.

To lift our spirits after the trying haircut experience we ventured off into the market to get a silk scarf each. Xian is famous for being the last city on the 'Silk Route' and having been travelling along the Silk Route for over a month we thought it would be nice to get ourselves a silk gift to mark the time. After much looking around, and a polyester fake that we managed to exchange, we walked away with two beautiful silk scarves. Or at least two very good silk looking polyester scarves.

Xian - LanZhou (02.23.12)

Train ride of around 8 hours hard sleeper, a luxury when compared to our 55 hours of hard seats. The comfort of the perfectly adequate but simple beds laid out for us was seconded by the harmony of at least four snorers around us as we drifted off to sleep.

LanZou - Xiahe (02.23.12)

We were fortunate enough to be able to hop almost directly onto the connecting bus (only three a day so was impeccable timing) and we were in Xiahe by midmorning.

Xiahe

Xiahe is a beautiful small Tibetan village next to the mountains with a large Tibetan Monastery surrounded by the wonders of out of city life; but similarly the sad downfalls - including poverty and extremely bad sanitation.

Our hostel was an example of the lack of facilities that were the norm in this small village. Our toilets were holes in the ground, and the shower was a hose and bucket that dispensed ice cold water. However, in contrast to the public showers that the locals used, and the road side that seemed to be the public toilets, we were living with facilities that some of the poorer communities could only dream of.

We stayed here longer than intended due to a bad bout of debilitating cold/flu that we both came down with, along with a series of bad migraines in my case, which combined with perhaps the altitude and excessive use of my eye mask caused my eyelids to swell up. Coupled with my terrible hair cut I looked ridiculous and felt awful.

Suffice to say our illness was very unwelcome under the conditions, but softened by the truly beautiful and humbling surroundings and occasional well received clear blue sky. When we felt up to it we joined the Tibetan Pilgrims and monks to circled the Monastery which was filled with incredible sites and was a reward in itself despite our fatigued states.

Xiahe - LanZou (02.28.12)

When we felt up to leaving we were able to get a bus back fairly swiftly after some careful planning and locally distributed drugs from the street pharmacy.

LanZou - ChengDu (02.29.12)

The train across to ChegDu was Soft Sleeper and only an overnight trip, we managed to regain strength on an easy ride across and reached Chengdu with much awaited anticipation.

ChengDu

ChegDu was yet another big city with many restaurants, teahouses and large secluded city parks, surrounded by busy roads and street vendors. It was warm again still with blue skies, and held excellent hope for a great trip out to see the pandas. We stayed here a while longer than intended after agreeing we needed to slow down somewhat after our 'jet set' or 'train set?' lifestyle of the past few weeks. It is hard to recall exactly what we did with our time, but it is safe to say that we enjoyed making the most of the comparatively luxury facilities and whiled away the afternoons in Teahouses and parks.

The Pandas were so much cuter than we could have ever imagined. Photos did not do them justice; however Hattie did take a video of the playing panda cubs that would no doubt be a YouTube sensation if we were able to upload from here.

Chengdu - KunMing (03.05.12)

After a night of throwing up intensely on my part and passing out on the toilet floor - from no less than one half a small glass of what I can only assume was gone off red wine served at the hostel bar - I was not really feeling in a fit state to make a train trip across to KunMing.

Seeing as we had already paid for the tickets we had little choice, so donned our huge coats and giant heavy bags and walked to the station. After a few dizzy pauses we reached the station where we had to wait the obligatory hour before boarding. I was already feeling better by the time we boarded and consequently slept it off as we travelled.

KunMing

Arriving in Kunming was amazing, it is hard to tell if it was due to feeling generally fitter after my horrible wine poisoning experience, or because we were finally in a city warm enough to not wear a coat, but even though in all honesty we were pulling into a Chinese city that looked not dissimilar from the rest, this time it felt more like a holiday. The sun was shining and we are finally in the city where we will get our bikes.

As we planned out the next few days, buying bikes and bike gear for our adventure ahead, sorting Vietnam visas and getting anti malaria tablets, we realised that even with the amazing sites of Russia, Kazakhstan and China - when we finally get the bikes and start to explore the small villages of southeast Asia, not taking public transport but instead cycling with the freedom of making our own way around, that is where the adventure really starts.

So we will leave on the note that next time you read from us it will be less about cities, tourist spots and the occasional small towns, and more about remote villages, tribal locations, and hot weather cycling!