Category: China

China: conclusions and tips

    30 days in 10 provinces with three different currencies; 6 days hiking; traveled by plane, train, tuk tuk, car, bicycle, bamboo raft and ferry; 2345643 kg of noodles and rice eaten; 2 Big Mac’s (yes I know that it’s not good, but I needed them desperately . . .) some Tsing Tao s 🙂 …

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Dragon’s Back (and other hikes in Hong Kong)

Hong Kong not only means business, shopping malls and restaurants. More than 70% of Hong Kong is mountain and forests so it is also a great place for hiking, with many mountain walks with panoramic vistas of offshore islands within an hour or so of the urban area. I learnt about it few months ago …

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Hong Kong, oh Hong Kong!

Once China Mainland left behind, after the passport control, suddenly people were kind, nice, polite . . . and all spoke English! In the metro, I even took a silent coach to go to the city centre, lol. If I was dead, that was Heaven 🙂 I stayed in Hong Kong for 6 days, one …

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Olá Macau!

While in Hong Kong, I traveled one day to Macau, which is at just one hour by ferry. A former Portuguese colony since the XVI th century, it was handed back to Chinese control in 1999. I was interested in Macau for its colonial architecture, which is located around Largo do Senado. In this area, there …

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Amazing landscapes (in Guangxi)

My last days in China were spent far from the crowds, in the countryside. From Guilin I still had 5 hours of road trip with 3 different buses (and a mini hike due to a landslide blocking the road) to arrive to my first stop, Ping An, where I had decided to spend two nights. …

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Tiger Leaping Gorge (in Yunnan!)

In the heart of Yunnan province, the fast flowing Yangtze River has cut a dramatic gorge so narrow in some places that, according to the legend, a tiger jumped across it to escape from a hunter. That is how Tiger Leaping Gorge, also reputed to be one of the deepest gorges in the world, got …

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All the colors in Sichuan

Greens, turquoises: It was not planned but the easiest way to go from Langmusi to Chengdu was a two days journey through Jiuzhaigou so I decided to add one day more and visit this park. Jiuzhaigou Valley is part of the Min Mountains on the edge of the Tibetan Plateau. It is known for its many multi-level waterfalls, …

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A taste of Tibet (in Gansú)

During my China tour, I did not have neither the time nor the budget to visit the Tibet Autonomous Region. But the Tibetan Plateau crosses the border and on the Chinese side, in Gansú province, there are some Tibetan villages to visit. Not the architectural wonders of Lhasa but the same mountains and endless paths …

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From Shanxi to Shaanxi

My first stop after Beijing was Pingyao, in Shanxi province. Pingyao is an intact walled Chinese city dating from Qing-Dynasty heydays. It is really nice to wander around its atmospheric streets and pop into traditional courtyard houses, temples or public buildings (today museums), one can really have a glimpse of how life was in Qing times. …

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Beijing sightseeing

The Forbidden City is one of the two most savage experiences in Beijing (the other one is Beijing metro at rush hour). However I was curious about this place since I was a child so after a good breakfast I was ready for the challenge. The construction of this huge city inside the city started …

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