Travel on James Jarvis

🇰🇭/🇹🇭/🇸🇬 Mini-Sabbatical Part 5: Final Stretch from Cambodia to Singapore

hello@jamesjarvis.io (James Jarvis) — Mon, 10 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000

This is part of the mini-sabbatical series. Read more here.

Bus across the Cambodian border

The border of Vietnam and Cambodia is remarkably deserted

Picking up where we left off in Saigon, are you still with me? I’m on a Giant Ibis bus bound for Phnom Penh in Cambodia, a gentle ~7 hour trip across the border and through basically nothing else of note.

My seat-neighbour for this trip is a nice lady from Scotland who has chosen to structure her life around travel. Gardening in the UK summer months and exploring for the rest of the year, she’s in her mid fifties and sounds like she has no intention of slowing down!

What surprised me is just how much less developed Cambodia felt than Vietnam, with dirt roads being the norm, and the border itself being a strange mix of undeveloped wasteland, and golden casinos. Once you start to near the capital, Phnom Penh, you can see where the money has gone.

Out of absolutely nowhere springs palatial buildings, and seemingly unnecessary skyscrapers.

Phnom Penh

Phnom Penh rises out of the dirt almost instantly

The city has an inauthentic feel to it, it really doesn’t fit in with the rest of the country. The wealth divide is crystal clear as Rolls Royces mix in the traffic with Tuk Tuks. The currency is apparently a locals joke, as I attempt to pay for my dinner with my hard found Riels, and the cashier sighs, pulls out a calculator and types 8 * 4015 to give me a rough amount for Cambodian Riels.

Japanese food, in Cambodia, priced in Dollars

Apparently Dollars are the currency of choice for many here.

To get around, you’ll be using Grab again, but Grab Bikes are out, with Grab Tuk Tuks taking their place.

You’ll miss tuk tuks once you leave

The night market looked like the place to be, but I was staying a bit further out in the “westerners section” and just wanted to relax at the hostel for a bit.

On a walk around town in the evening, I overheard some American ex-pats catching up and talking about an impending stock market crash. Hilariously, a few weeks prior while I was in China my coworkers texted me to say my company had just announced a large round of layoffs. I texted back with “cant be bothered to check my email, can someone just text me if I’ve been fired k thx x”, no economic shocks are going to ruin these vibes.

The Wealth Gap is real in Cambodia

The town is surrounded by armed guards and has a chronic lack of pedestrian walking signals. Not knowing the jaywalking rules in this country, it takes me forever to get back to the hostel.

Tuol Sleng / S-21

I’m only in Phnom Penh for 24 hours, so before my next bus at midday, I’m in a Tuk Tuk to visit Security Prison 21.

This place is a solid contender for Most Shocking Museum I’ve Visited, right alongside the Vietnam War Remnants Museum.

I had just about had time to research about the Khmer Rouge on the bus through Cambodia, and it shocked me. If you don’t know, the Khmer Rouge (Communist Party of Kampuchea) came to power in the late 1970’s at the same time that communism was making it’s way through South East Asia.

I still know little about this period of history, but aside from America’s intervention in Vietnam, communism made huge waves throughout Asia, with the only notable survivor from this being the “communist” PRC, who had a similarly devastating cultural revolution before deciding that a good old fashioned capitalist dictatorship works best for them.

The Khmer Rouge however defied all logic and entered into a campaign of totalitarian repression, and ultimately, genocide. To put it simply, the Khmer Rouge destroyed almost all of the country’s infrastructure (schools, roads, railways), and killed roughly 25% of the total Cambodian population, specifically minority groups and those with enough intelligence to pose a threat to politicians.

All told, this set the country back from its peers by decades, with the country still struggling to rebuild to this day.

Focusing on Tuol Sleng, the former school became a prison/centre for torture, from which only 0.03% of prisoners ever left alive.

Humans can be pretty nasty sometimes

Much of it has been left untouched, with beds placed in the same position as they were found, minus any human remains.

Photos of inmates, stories of couples who had been split up and separately executed for no reason, this would shock anyone to the core.

On the way out, there were some elderly people sitting behind a booth. The signs said they had been former prisoners (or guards, I can’t recall), and that they were there to spread the story of their survival to future generations. They may even be Chum Mey or Bou Meng from this BBC article, but I couldn’t talk to them, I didn’t know what to say.

To think this place of torture was once a school, is sad enough, but to think the barbed wire was there to prolong suffering…

I left, slightly disturbed, but peaceful in the knowledge that at least information about this horrific regime is being spread. History is most likely to repeat itself, when people do not know it happened before.

Siem Reap

Another bus, another city, I’m getting the hang of this.

I arrive in Siem Reap, dump my bags at the hostel, book a couple activities for the next few days and go for a walk around town to understand what this place has to offer.

Thanks to the lack of good transport in Cambodia, your only real option is to get Buses around, with the downside that by the time you reach anywhere, the chances are that it is now too dark to enjoy.

But Siem Reap, a town where over 50% of the locals are employed in the tourism industry, has enough to offer the weary traveller. Each South East Asian tourist town has the same staples: Markets, Pubs, Restaurants, with typically the same stuff. However they also each reserve a slight speciality.

Pub Street

For Siem Reap this appeared to be Fish Tanks to eat the dead skin off of your feet. I did not partake.

Temples

The Southern gate to Angkor

The next day, I had hired a bike to explore the nearby remnants of Angkor, littered with temples and indications of a long extinct civilisation.

Since by now you will be used to the prices of everything in Cambodia being fairly cheap (I think a day’s bike rental was $10, and that was on the expensive side), you might get a shock to discover a 3 day pass just to enter the old city of Angkor is $62. Still, it is easily one of the best things to visit in Cambodia, so suck it up and pay.

Angkor is fantastically impressive, with the grand structures and reservoirs even visible from space (not that I could test it, but the map seemed to confirm).

Feel like your inner Indiana Jones

Once upon a time this place had been one of the largest cities in the world, with a population of up to a million people back when London was still a small town.

Cycling through the complex, you could hardly tell. Not only are the distances between each temple vast (the total journey was almost 40km), between them you would have no idea you are in such a prestigious location.

Out of seemingly nowhere however, will rise up a series of awe inspiring stone facades.

The famous ‘Tomb Raider’ temple Ta Phrom

The face towers of the Bayon, the serenity of Angkor Wat, and -of course- the “tomb raider” temple of Ta Phrom are all sights to behold.

Or at least it was until the rain started, and continue to soak me and all of my belongings for the rest of the day. My notebook never truly recovered, so that put an end to a bit of my journalling!

Got a bit damp, and some funny looks

The next day I took part in a very touristic sunrise tour of Angkor Wat. I had avoided the majority of this particular temple the day before as I knew I would be visiting again, but in hindsight I didn’t miss much, with most of the tour being spent waiting for the sun to raise behind the temple. It was very pretty, and I was particularly interested in the temple’s wall carvings, but for such a peaceful location, the number of tourists did start to detract from the experience.

The tourists flock to see the sun rise above a pretty building

If you are going yourself, I would recommend going at midday or early afternoon to avoid this tourist trap.

Markets

Making it back to the hostel, I realised I had not bought any gifts yet from my travels for the family.

Each shop will have at least 2-3 copies, apparently nobody understood the concept of ‘perfect competition’

Luckily Siem Reap has a perfectly suitable “old market” in the middle of town, which is fairly average as far as south east asian markets go, but has everything you could expect. A couple “hippie trousers”, lip balms and trinkets later, I decide that’s enough haggling for today so settle down.

Bangkok

Local Tuk Tuks of Bangkok

I cheated a bit here, and got my first flight of the trip since Hong Kong. It just didn’t make much sense to spend so much time on another bus, when the flight was a fraction of the time, and only a little bit more expensive. I also got to see one of Cambodia’s newest airports! A vast terminal that had only opened a few weeks prior, I was almost alone in the place, with barely one or two corner shops to keep me busy while I sat around for my departure.

Anyway, I made it to Bangkok and to the Jam Hostel (next to infamous “Mad Monkey”), and to be honest, I wasn’t looking forward to it.

Unlike the rest of the trip, I had poor expectations of Bangkok, as being effectively just a Red Light district for 18 year olds on their first trip outside of the western world, where beer and drugs could be found, cheaply.

The parallel Thanon Ram Buttri street is much nicer than Khao San (pictured)

To a certain extent, Khao San Road was a bit like that, but I think the last few months being in Asia had reset my expectations a bit, to the point where I really wasn’t that shocked by anything.

On the plus side, staying in one of the more popular hostels did mean that I got to tag along for some great day tours, and meet some fun people for a few days.

Floating Markets

The next morning, I gathered in the common area to a group of backpackers sitting around making smalltalk. Joining in, I discover everyone is heading to a nearby “floating market”.

Not having had enough of markets just yet (and not knowing that this was a thing to see in Bangkok, I sign myself up).

The boats of the floating markets

The markets themselves are much the same as everywhere else (that is, great for food and small trinkets), but with the key distinction of river boats travelling around and through the maze of canals that make up urban Bangkok.

The small cafes and roasted insects were fun to see and taste, but I was primarily focused on these boats. They all consisted of roughly the same wooden hull, but whilst half were paddle powered, the other half were petrol powered. It seemed as though the locals had ripped the engine out of an old toyota truck, cleaned it up a bit (they were spotless), and strapped it to the back.

Some of them had bright purple air intakes and polished chrome exhaust manifolds, and wouldn’t have looked too far out of place from a Fast and Furious floating spinoff.

Muay Thai

“You see Muay Thai, you see Thailand” I remember a tannoy speaker blaring out while I sat on a beach in Phuket with my friend a few months ago. My friend was a huge fan of martial arts, whereas I had more or less lost interest after giving up on karate lessons after my 12th birthday.

This night in Bangkok promised another adventure, as the entire hostel was invited to a free Muay Thai event. I had assumed we would be going to the “Muay Thai Street” signposted a few hundred metres from the hostel, but after an hour on a bus it seemed this wouldn’t be the case.

Still, on arrival we found this to be a bit more than a barn yard brawl as some had expected. We were in a fully fledged arena, complete with presenters and live TV streaming!

You see Muay Thai, you see Thailand!

The fights were fairly tame most of the night, with the odd “oohhh shiii” thrown in as one of the opponents roundhouse kicks the other’s jaw. Still not quite to my liking, and I fear for the participants long term health, but it was a hell of a better adrenaline rush than any tennis match!

More temples

The next day, I broke away from the pack of backpackers to ~~see how far I could walk in a single day~~ explore the rest of Bangkok.

Of course, it had to be The Grand Palace and The Golden Mount.

The Grand Palace was quite interesting. Coming from my own monarchist country, I was surprised to see that the royal family of Thailand seems to actually have a presence. You’ll see large photos of the king of Thailand on public roads and buildings, but no clear sign of what he contributes to the country.

The King of Thailand sure likes to make himself known

Whilst it was a nice place to visit, unfortunately if the Grand Palace is all the Thai Monarchy has to show for itself, I’d probably vote them out. Oh, wait…

Anyway, cris-crossing my way over to the Golden Mount I pass by another monument: The Reclining Buddha.

sup? nm, you?

If I’m being honest, this one was a bit of a mistake - I had meant to go see the “Golden Buddha”, a $370 million solid 18k gold statue of the famous figure. I ended up seeing a very large “golden” buddha, but this one was about the size of a building and laying down on his side. Still, it was fun to see!

I had timed my visit to the Golden Mount with the sunset. A great idea, I had thought, if only everyone else hadn’t had the same idea. A queue to the top awaited me, but the wait was worth it, with a particularly golden mount thanks to the dusk.

The Golden Mount

On your way up and down are a series of bells to ring, I’m still not sure what they are for, but I assume a healthy blend of religious practice and tourist entertainment, and I’m all for it.

Paying it Forward

This is the view I remember most from my walks

At the base of the Golden Mount, I was looking for somewhere to eat for my last night in Bangkok. “Thipsamai” had been recommended to me as “the best Thai food I have ever had” from another backpacker. Alas, the queue stretched around the block, so I quickly gave up and shuffled into a quieter restaurant down a side alley.

Luckily this place had a great balcony with views of the golden mount, and I was alone! After a bit of time journalling, a British couple turned up to also admire the view, I ordered a beer and a Pad Kra Pao.

They ordered a couple of glasses of wine, and said they had followed me in to this deserted restaurant and upstairs because I looked like I “knew what I was doing”, I wish!

Turns out they were out on their first long trip together after semi-retiring that year. They had each independently travelled to Thailand backpacking 30 years prior, and wanted the rush of an adventure again, we “cheers”’d to that.

I shared some stories from my past few months of travels, some of which I recorded in this blog. I just remember thinking how nice it is to connect to quickly with strangers, feeling so similar, despite our differences. You just don’t get that kind of interaction back home!

They left a bit before me as I had food to finish, when I went to pay the server said I owed nothing. “The couple paid for you”. I never got a chance to say thanks, so consider this my pledge to pay it forward!

Koh Samui

I got one good day of weather, and made the most of it!

My final stopover before heading back home, is a 5 day stint on the island of Koh Samui, where I had hoped to relax, get sunburnt and maybe try out some scuba diving.

Well, maybe not! I forgot to check the weather beforehand, but suffice to say that November is peak monsoon season in Koh Samui, and no ferries were operating for scuba diving trips.

I spent a lot of time in a local restaurant 200m from the hostel

Still, I took the time to decompress, go for some short hikes, read my books and be a bit of a hermit for the last few days of my trip. I even managed to get a little bit of sunburn!

Singapore; Farewell

Arab Street is a great location to stay in Singapore

My last 24 hours in Singapore. I couldn’t believe how time had flown! If you have been reading these blogs, I’m sure you could! (I could have made these shorter, I’m sorry).

I don’t think there is any one thing in particular that I have learnt from this, but I’m grateful for having had these experiences.

I’m grateful that I got to meet my girlfriend’s family, that I got to meet some amazing people backpacking, and that I got to relive an experience from my favourite TV show. I’m grateful that I continue to get to experience a more vivid life than I could previously afford, and that it feels like an option that remains open to me in the future, should I want it.

For now though, I must head back to London. I met up with some coworkers, including ones who acted as my replacement in the company’s rotation scheme (they say they have had a predictably chaotic time). For a moment I forgot that I am still employed, and have to go back to work in only 2 days time. The thought unnerves me slightly, but I’m happy to return with a renewed clarity.

For my last 5 hours, I visited 5 different Muji shops chasing a particular shirt to buy my Dad (and a final Acai bowl for me!), then I head for Changi International Airport.

But I’ll be back; there is more to see!

As I publish this, I’m washing my clothes in preparation for another flight to China in a few days time. So, Asia hasn’t seen the last of me yet!

See you again soon

🇻🇳 Mini-Sabbatical Part 4: Vietnam, from the North to the South

hello@jamesjarvis.io (James Jarvis) — Mon, 03 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000

This is part of the mini-sabbatical series. Read more here.

Precursor: Top Gear

When I was a wee kid in 2009, the UK series of Top Gear aired an episode that would come to sear itself into my memory.

“The Vietnam Special” followed the famous three motoring journalist as they travelled from Saigon to Ha Long Bay on 3 motorbikes over the course of 8 eventful days. If you haven’t watched it, I can’t recommend it enough. Unfortunately, I can’t ride a motorbike, but since Top Gear cheated a bit and took the night train, I thought I would follow in their footsteps on my own interpretation of this challenge.

From Ha Long Bay to Saigon in 8 days, skirting the coastline of Vietnam as I make my way down.

Ha Long Bay

My journal got ruined by a monsoon in Cambodia, more on that later…

I’m on flight number VN-593 from Hong Kong to Hanoi, arriving at ~4pm.

These kinds of travel days are generally fairly mundane: Train, Plane, Taxi, Hotel, Sleep. On the face of it I’m in store for much the same routine, except my final destination for the night is over 150km from the hostel.

Luckily I booked this hostel a couple weeks back on Hostelworld, and had arranged with the hostel owner to take a “limousine” they recommended that was both way cheaper than a taxi, and faster than a bus/train combo.

Well, this “limousine” turns out to be just some dude in an old toyota - can’t complain! The driver can’t speak any English, so we communicate via some screen-sharing and laughing, but he isn’t following the route on my phone and I’m getting a bit confused… We stop off and pick up some boxes. Then stop off again and pick up another box. Another stop off, we pick up a dog(?)

I’m getting a bit confused here - am I just cargo? One more stop later and I get my answer, as the man picks up his own daughter and she explains the whole situation to me in good English - a common method of transport in Vietnam are these online groups where you can barter for moving goods or people around. Their family lives in Ha Long but works in Hanoi so this is quite a frequent trip for them, picking up a dog or confused tourist along the way just helps pay for their trip!

A meandering 4 hour trip later (with dinner break), I arrive at the Alex Hostel, grab a Banh Mi from a nearby stall, and conk out on the bed.

I’m only in Ha Long for a day so I thought it would be good to explore the area in the morning. Not quite sure what I was expecting, but it was clear that a lot of investment had been put into the city, with little to no return.

An apocalyptic Austria, or Vietnam?

I was staying in the Bai Chay region of Ha Long, which is the more modern, touristic section of the city cleaved in two by the Bai Chay bridge. Much of the area in Bai Chay is reclaimed land, upon which has been built a whole section of European-esque buildings, complete with statues of prominent European figures.

…That are almost entirely empty…

I sat in a cafe with an iced egg coffee (amazing btw), alone aside from a security guard who was there to protect… nothing.

Strange place, but I can only imagine that the combination of coronavirus and my arrival during the off season were to blame.

Still, I’m here for one reason: To see Ha Long Bay by boat. At the ferry terminal I’m sat next to a group of uncles who tell me they are on holiday from China, I share some stories via google translate from my recent travels, we grab a selfie and then share an even more awkward seat together on the ferry around the islands.

He wanted a photo, so I got one too

This tour around Ha Long Bay is much the same as one you can take around the Krabi islands of Thailand, with similar Flora, Fauna, caves and beaches. The only difference is that Ha Long Bay is much larger, covering over a thousand islets.

In Top Gear, the trio ended their race at a floating fishing village.

15 years later, I came to the realisation that a tourist’s day tour of the bay would not be enough time to reach deep enough into the islands to see floating villages. I’ve been told that the thing to do in Ha Long Bay is to go on a multi-day cruise around the islets, but I’ve been warned that these types of cruises are almost exclusively old couples, and I didn’t fancy spending 1/3rd of my time in Vietnam feeling oppressively single.

Your typical tour boat

Still, I did have enough time on the boat to see some amazing sights, walk around a cave, climb to the top of an island, kayak around a lagoon and relax for a bit on the beach.

No time to relax too much though, as I’m back in a “limo” bound for Hanoi as the sun dips below the horizon.

Hanoi

I’m staying in the Old Quarter, the cultural heart of Hanoi, also where you will find a hefty number of me-clones. From this point onwards I feel on a well trodden path of 20-somethings finding themselves through a few weeks holiday through South East Asia.

In the morning my hostel arranged a walking tour of Hanoi and I get to know a bunch of my fellow hostellers.

A married couple from England who sold everything to travel non-stop for the last year (one trained to be a travel agent to take advantage of the internal discounts, smart)
A New Zealander travelling after her last breakup
A Japanese guy on his first trip alone
A Californian girl wearing a concerning amount of Patagonia/Arcteryx

I had a great time sharing stories with them as we wandered across train tracks and through the bustling Dong Xuan market, sharing tips of where the best fake North Face stall might be.

Most of the travellers were in Vietnam for longer, and had just come down from the mountains after completing the Ha Giang Loop - a ~4 day motorbike trip in the breathtaking Vietnamese mountains bordering southern China. After hearing their stories I wished I had performed a bit more research other than watching a single 15 year old episode of british tv, but I’ll save Ha Giang for next time I visit!

The most popular Banh Mi shop in Hanoi, Banh Mi 25

Walking away from the market empty handed, we all bonded over our extra touristic Banh Mi 25 sandwich. Whilst I can’t say for sure that it’s the best Banh Mi in Hanoi, it’s above the bar for me. I’m just grateful to finally be back in a country that has good bread!

Hoa Lo/Hanoi Hilton offered a strangely depressing interlude to our day. I hadn’t learnt about the Vietnamese war before this trip, so I frantically googled for information to counter the details presented in this museum (some museums can be very one-sided, but I still don’t know about this one. For more sad museums skip to “Ho Chi Minh”). The guillotine and cramped cells were mostly in reference to conditions during the first Indochina war, with the American-Vietnam war mostly being consigned to a section berating the Americans (quite rightly) and detailing how much fun the American prisoners had during their stay at the Hilton (suspicious).

Train Street

It doesn’t taste better, but it’s cheaper, so it’s better

Despite warnings from our morning tour guide saying that “Train Street is closed to the public”, we later learned that this was a bit of an untruth.

“Train Street” has become synonymous with Vietnam in general, and therefore attracts a ridiculous number of tourists, all hoping to grab their shot of a train passing by. Clearly it would be both dangerous and a downright nuisance to the already struggling vietnamese rail system if the train had to plow through white people every few hours.

So, the officials have “closed” the street.

Officially, this means that tour guides and public notices spread the word that the street is closed, the entrance is blocked with gates and “nothing for you mr tourist” signs.

Unofficially, you just need a whatsapp contact, or to wait outside these gates like a vampire until someone invites you in. Inside, you’ll find that train street is well and truly open for business, though I believe each of the bars are part of a train street cartel. As we sat there with our noodles and beer, a lady wearing purple came over to take payment. She carried a wad of cash and didn’t take no for an answer, routing from tourist to tourist like a mosquito in a hostel. Not just the bar we sat at, but every bar in the street, she was the cashier and the boss.

The officials will come over and check that the street is “closed” every couple of hours. You’ll know when they come because a whistle will blow, and you have 5 minutes to pick up your beer and head inside as the staff close up shop behind you, turn off the lights, and pay the policeman while he takes a photo of the now dark, empty street.

Don’t worry, give it another 5 minutes and the next whistle blow will turn the lights back on, open the shutters and bring the tourists back out in a stampede.

You can see the officer, just before he took some photos

Not a phone in sight, just living in the moment

I have to say, “Train Street” is a place you simply can’t miss on your trip to Hanoi.

Pub street however, is absolutely just a street with a bunch of pubs, so unless you are there just for the cheap beer and dodgy clubs I’d give that a miss.

Communist Architecture

My last day in Hanoi I took it a bit slower, grabbing a “Grab” to the other side of town, where I hoped to walk back from.

Grab Bikes are the unsung heroes of south east asia

As an aside, Grab is another “must-have” app for south east asia. Highly recommend setting it up before you head off.

My destination from the Grab was B-52 lake, so named after the American B52 bomber that fell into the lake during the American-Vietnamese war, where it stayed as neither side could be bothered to move it. It serves as one of the last untouched reminders of the war, but as it abstracts any of the actual atrocities, you can find a few very quiet cafes overlooking the lake.

The B52 bomber that was never removed

From there I strolled through the botanical gardens and on to the Ho Chi Minh palace and mausoleum. This section of Hanoi has the most “communist” feel to it, with a large central square flanked by palaces, museums and even a garden where Ho Chi Minhs original stilt house stands, defiant from time. I took a route back to the old quarter along leafy streets flanked by large diplomatic residences in differing styles, and a lot of security guards.

Supposedly, Ho Chi Minh is still inside

Cycling Mafia

I had a train to catch at 7 from Ga Hanoi, but had already been walking all day so looked at getting a grab for the ~2km journey. It was ~30k dong for a car, but the traffic meant the car wouldn’t arrive for another few minutes, so I flagged down a cycle rickshaw.

Top tip: agree on a price before you get on one of these

I had taken one of these in India a few years back and know they would cost less than a car, but I also assumed there would be some kind of tourist rate. The guy seemed nice enough however, and we had a pleasant chat for the ~15 minute cycle to the station. Since he was nice, I thought I’d be nice and give him a tip, so I gave him 50k dong, more than hiring an entire car.

Bad move, he demanded 400k… Obviously I wasn’t going to pay that, and just regretted not agreeing on the price beforehand. This guy then immediately started recruiting a local taxi driver and some other locals, clearly lying to them saying he had cycled me all day long. They seemed to not care too much, so I asked a lady at the train station how much she would pay for a 15 minute cycle taxi. Her reply? 1.5k dong…

This guy kept yelling at me for a good 15 minutes more, yelling “mafia, mafia”. I shouted back “I’m not a mafia!”.

Eventually the angry little man settled on 100k, and I went back to sitting outside the station. A couple minutes after he left, a local shop owner came up to me.

“I’m sorry for that, they are a mafia around here”.

Ah, that explains it…

Still, I wasn’t alone. Also waiting at the station for a train to Da Nang was another Software Engineer from the UK, Harry.

Bit of a strange way to meet, but it gave us a good conversation starter and we got along pretty well thanks to basically being the same person. He was on a train to Da Nang an hour before mine (I accidentally arrived early, should’ve walked!), but we promised to meet up in Hoi An the next day.

Train from Hanoi to Hoi An

Waving at the locals as we leave Hanoi

If you are going to book a train around Vietnam, and you don’t already speak the language, you really only have 1 option: baolau.com. However, you do have a few options to choose from whilst on the train itself: sitting upright, sleeping in a 6 berth and sleeping in a 4 berth. I’m happy to travel on a budget, but given the 17 hour travel time, I protected my sanity and dropped a cool 735k dong on a 4 berth bed.

The train I was on had been refurbished a few years prior, so was really nice, and came with clean sheets due to Hanoi being the first stop (if you are joining in Da Nang it will already have been slept in, as I found out later). The main telltale sign that the rail network has seen better days was when travelling through the city, I could not believe a train was able to rock so much without coming off the tracks!

I was hoping it would stop, or at least rock me back to sleep, but banging my head made sure to stop that, at least until we left the city.

I did eventually fall asleep however, and woke up for the nicest bit of the journey: The Hai Van Pass. I wasn’t aware at the time, but this stretch of the journey is classed as one of the prettiest train journeys of all time, and I could see why!

You dangle over the cliff, along the hills, and around the beaches, you even pass by the same viewpoint as seen in Top Gear, which caused me to squint in disbelief.

You get plenty of time to admire it, as this section of the journey is painfully slow, averaging jogging pace around the hills as the train rocks back and forth, threatening to send you and it down the cliffs.

Some people stay in Da Nang attempting to catch some waves surfing (as Harry was hoping to), but I had my eyes set on one thing, so jumped in another grab for the short journey to Hoi An.

Hoi An

The trademark lanterns of Hoi An, as seen from a rooftop cafe

I had chatted with the hostel host beforehand to sign myself up for a food tour shortly after arrival, but I had forgotten to mention that my friend (Harry) from outside the hostel also wanted to come. She was joking admonishing me as she was afraid there wouldn’t be enough push bikes for everyone.

Everything was fine in the end, but Harry was wondering why every time he saw me, someone was shouting at me!

The food tour consisted of a series of pit stops at road side stalls, where we would balance on tiny plastic chairs. I can’t recall the names of the food, but we had plenty of noodles, skewers and a bready snack filled with chocolate, all were quite nice!

Suit Up

I said I had my eyes set on one thing, and that thing was a suit. Specifically, I wanted a pink linen suit that I could wear to my sister’s wedding in 2024.

Harry was down to have a look at suits as well, so we set out, first to have a look at the same tailors as Top Gear, and then to visit the tailors recommended by our hostel host.

We only had 35 hours remaining in Hoi An, so tonight we had a fantastic time choosing the styles, colours and materials for our suits, along with some initial measurements. We were like kids in a candy shop, except now quarter aged men in a suit shop. Linen, Cashmere, Wool, Silk, in any colour and any combination it’s no wonder that half the town is suit shops catering to tourists. An australian brother and sister we met at the hostel also partook, having a velvet smoking jacket and “designer” dress made.

As for the price, it was pretty good but no doubt you could haggle a better price than me!

For 2 linen shirts and 2 three-piece linen suits my total came to 15.5 million Vietnamese Dong (~£500). I thought this was a great deal and I didn’t want to spoil the moment with haggling, but talking to a friend from singapore, they managed to get a more classic 2 piece cashmere-wool suit for only ~£100 after knocking half off the price. Your results may vary!

Suit measurements, featuring my beige linen and Harry in the background

The next day we had a series of re-fittings for our suits to go to, so it was mostly a blur of riding our bikes between cafe, tailors, shop, tailors, bar, tailors, bar. Fantastic day!

In the evening we picked up our suits, and went out to a “tiger tiger” bar with people from the hostel. Harry regretted staying in Da Nang, as he had to cling onto the back of a scooter for 45 mins with his suit, whilst not entirely sober.

Travelling is about meeting people after all

Train from Hoi An to Saigon

The views from the train. Somewhere between Hoi An and Saigon

I’m told the north calls Saigon “Ho Chi Minh City”, while the south calls Ho Chi Minh City “Saigon”. I still can’t tell which one is right.

Anyway, I was back on the Vietnamese railway network for an 18.5 hour trip down the coast again. This time, as I’m getting on halfway through the train’s route from Hanoi -> Ho Chi Minh City, the cabin/bed was a bit less clean, so something to be aware of if you make the journey yourself.

In my cabin this time was a Scottish couple in their 60’s, continuing their adventurous retirement. I chatted with them for a while, and they shared their plans to travel across Cambodia. I hadn’t booked the next leg of my trip yet, so I took their advice and reserved some coaches using 12go.asia, apparently the most trustworthy website to use. Supposedly buses can really start to range in comfort around this area, so while I can’t speak for all of them, I can say I used Giant Ibis and they were quite good.

This couple reminded me a lot like my girlfriend and I’s hero’s of 2023: Tony and Elaine. They had taken part on the BBC show Race Across the World, travelling from London to Singapore across 50 days on a budget of only £1329 each.

I’m still working on convincing Feiyang to do this with me…

Ho Chi Minh City / Saigon

We have just over 24 hours in Saigon, so what else to do besides of course, the Ho Chi Minh war remnants museum.

War Remnants Museum

No photos from the inside, it gets quite graphic

Harry and I spent a few hours here walking around sombrely, with it’s harrowing honest portrayal of the effects of the war playing through our heads. Having never quite understood the impacts of “agent orange” before, I was horrified. The museum does a traumatically excellent job of conveying the human impact of such dioxins, and shows in graphic detail the deformations and destruction it has wrought upon all generations nearby. The inhumanity of this war, the indecency of the soldiers, the indiscriminate razing of all life shocked me. I wept a bit.

This article captures some of the essence of what the museum showed, but the in person experience is something that cannot be conveyed in this article, or any other so far detached.

Cu Chi Tunnels

Snug fit in the Cu Chi Tunnels

On the complete other end of the spectrum, the Cu Chi Tunnels.

For this, we were granted a ridiculously cheerful tour guide, who insisted on singing his favourite American songs for the entire 2 hour journey to the tunnels.

On arrival, it’s quite what you would expect, with a medium density forest giving way to the odd stretch of dirt, and a couple holes for the tourists to peek / jump inside.

Coming from the war remnants museum, this was a bit underwhelming, with the only authentic part of the experience being the occasional crack of M16 rifle fire by an American (tourist, this time).

It didn’t feel very ethical to fire American guns near a war site, but Americans will be Americans

Bui Vien

Our time in Saigon - Vietnam in general - was coming to a close.

We caught back up with Alfonso (from the train ride earlier) for a few beers down in Bui Vien street.

Whilst it’s not the craziest scene in South East Asia, it’s still enough to put you off western tourists, with the classic affair of cheap drinks and soft drugs fuelling a late night culture.

We stayed for a bit, but after having our fill of food and Saigon beer and struggling to find a good rooftop bar with live music, we called it a night.

Drinks with Alfonso and Harry

To Cambodia

I left early the next day, with just enough time to grab a last Banh Mi with Harry before jumping on my first Bus of the trip.

Bus stops aren’t quite what you would expect, considering the prevalence of this mode of transport.

I waited for my Giant Ibis coach from Ho Chi Minh to Phnom Penh outside a seemingly random cafe on a normal street. Only the dozen or so confused looking backpackers could give away it’s true purpose. I was following in the footsteps of that scottish couple from before, and back to being alone.

I had achieved a cross country trip in 8 days, the complete reverse of Top Gear from my youth.

Writing this looking back now, I miss Vietnam, I mmissed it as soon as I left in truth. The chaos, the community, the suits. I know I’ll be back for more of them all!

Looking ahead, my flight to London leaves in 12 days from Singapore. I still have 2 more countries I want to see…

🇨🇳/🇭🇰 Mini-Sabbatical Part 3: Chengdu to Hong Kong

hello@jamesjarvis.io (James Jarvis) — Mon, 13 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000

This is part of the mini-sabbatical series. Read more here.

Qingchengshan

Before leaving Chengdu (where I unfortunately missed out on my chance to see Pandas thanks to illness ☹️), we were recommended to visit a nearby resort town called Qingchengshan.

Transport links were good (a short train from Chengdu) and the hotels seemed nice and quite cheap, so why not!

Upon arrival, it seems this was one of those towns that had been through a “boom” and “bust” period and never quite made it made it on the other side.

All of the buildings must have been less than 20-30 years old, so quite modern by resort standards, but many had fallen into disrepair.

This was next to the tourist information office in Qingchengshan, which was pretty dead when we asked for information

Still, more for us! Our hotel (like many in the area) was a hot springs resort hotel, and we were lucky enough to have pretty much the entire place to ourselves, so we inevitably spent most of our time relaxing around the hot springs. At least Feiyang did, my weak British genes kept me out of the hottest pools for the most part.

We were also staying opposite to a fantastic traditional style restaurant, where all food was prepared in the same fashion as an ancient village would have done.

Ducks just hanging about

This was my first experience of so many dried meats in one place, and we only wished we found out about it earlier, as by the time we got around to visiting, they were only 30 minutes before closing.

One of the days we stayed, we went for a couple hours of walking to a nearby tourist village, past the Sichuan University. I think they were having exams that day, as hundreds of students meandered about looking mildly stressed, munching on some sausages and snacks from the food carts that stopped enterprisingly outside of the entrance. We grabbed a 20p spicy processed sausage as we passed, though I’m fairly sure that gave us some digestive issues later on.

In the village, we found a cute-but-not-quite-Gubei traditional village. It was clearly not quite as affluent as some other areas we had been to, but that made it all the more interesting! Passing by shops with more traditional food, tea houses with Koi fish, local farmers markets or bamboo woodworking shops, the place felt much more “real” than the cities we had become accustomed to.

Beneath this bridge you could rent pedalo boats, but we chose to get bubble tea instead

Whilst I probably wouldn’t recommend Qingchengshan for the first time visitor, if you had more time than us it seemed like a good entrance to the nearby National Park, and I suppose you could always spend a bit more time in the hot springs! We had spent long enough in the region where I had high expectations of Pandas and Sichuan Peppers, and ended up being ill for most of it. We are as fast West as we were going to get on our trip, and we are now looking at having to race down to Hong Kong in one week’s time, to make sure Feiyang gets back to England for her Accountancy exams!

Yangshuo

I miss these massage chairs so much as I travel now. £1 and you get 15 minutes of relaxation

Leaving Qingchengshan, we make sure to enjoy the £1 train station massage chairs while we wait! The scenery so far has been fairly flat all the way from Beijing to Chengdu, though you can sometimes see mountains in the distance. Yangshuo however greeted us with a completely different, slightly alien landscape. Perhaps that’s why this region is famous for inspiring Avatar’s imagination-capturing floating cloud forests.

Pandora?

For those unaware, Yangshuo lies on the Li river, near the larger town of Guilin. It’s at roughly the same latitude as Taiwan, the same Longitude as Hainan, and has a similarly tropical climate to both.

The river bank is dotted with rafts where you can rent a traditional outfit, and have your photo taken on the boat, with a bird chained in the background. Not our cup of tea but apparently a hit with the local tourists!

It’s claim to fame is obviously the jaw dropping scenery afforded by the smooth surrounding mountains, rice fields and bamboo sheltered river. Though quite strangely it appears the town was not much of a tourist hotspot until the foreigners arrived. Supposedly, an American bought up some land by the river in the 80s, and opened a very fancy hotel that is still fully booked out months into the future. Many have tried to capitalise on this success, and our own hotel was owned by a Belgian couple who live on/off in the village, with tales of dozens more airbnb’s popping up.

Hotel breakfast views don’t get much better

I think we may have timed this trip quite well, being slightly out of peak season, and so soon after the lifting of COVID restrictions, we were mostly alone in the hotels we stayed. This one was clearly catering for western tourists, yet it was only us and another Russian couple who were staying. No complaints from us though, as we could reserve the best view every morning!

Bamboo rafts

We had a couple days around town, and decided to spend one of them doing the classic bamboo raft trip down the river. Anticipating lots of sun and some great photos opportunities, we made sure to pick up some nice cheap straw hats before getting on a raft.

Embarrassing tourist, me? No…

This was probably the single most memorable thing we did on this trip. A 2 hour float down the Li river, in fantastic weather, with some of the most spectacular views in this corner of the world. You’d struggle to find anything else more relaxing than this!

Our captain(?) kept calling me “Hello” as the white guy on board, but he made sure to take some nice photos of us!

Yes, yes, it’s a cheesy pose I know

I recognised the river on one of the banknotes, and found that the 20 yuan banknote denotes a location not too far from where we were!

20 Yuan close enough

You could visit it if you have time, but you basically have to take the ferry from Yangshuo to Guilin, so we made do with a near-enough shot. I have this hobby where for each country I visit, I keep a denomination of the local currency and hang it on my wall at home as a souvenir. It turns out to be a bit more manageable than fridge magnets, but having bank notes represent famous places from the country is certainly more interesting than a random politician!

Further down the stream you begin to notice that we are on a bit of a man-made ride though. Aside from the hundreds of bamboo rafts, and sheer abundance of electric mopeds about, you notice that the river banks themselves have been shaped by concrete, and planted with bamboo. Not that I’m complaining, I do like some bamboo.

I wish bamboo like this grew everywhere

E-Scootering

These mopeds were everywhere

Despite the fact that this town is in the middle of the countryside, it’s not quite rural enough to feel like it has been untouched by technology.

As I passed, I felt like this photo summed up the feeling of China in one image

Again, every car you see (aside from the tour buses) are electric, and you lose count of the seemingly self-replicating electric mopeds that litter the streets. I think it only cost us ~£15 to rent an e-scooter for the day, and nobody checked our licenses or asked for a deposit, they just let us go out on our own adventure.

Without ever having ridden a moped before, we set out for the rest of the day on the bike.

Our magnificent steed

A 20 minute drive from our hotel was the start of a riverside drive that was supposed to be dotted with cafes and other shops. To be honest, we didn’t have enough time to fully explore the area, but we had fun zipping about from one area to the next, stopping to admire the views and get away from other people for a while.

Along the way we stopped at an old lady’s stall by the river where Feiyang introduced me to a “bean drink”. Whilst I can’t remember the name of it, it came in a little tub, and you drink from a spoon. The gritty, bland-but-sweet taste wasn’t really to my liking, but it took Feiyang back to her childhood.

We also stopped by a western style cafe amongst the rice fields, where you can hardly tell where the rice ends and the instagram models begin, due to sheer number of photo-shoots taking place.

Not ones to miss out, we also took photos, blocking out the others

Feiyang clinging on for dear life

As the sun set, we booked a full body massage (my first!) at the hotel, and drove back to the scooter rental place.

Touristy, but deservedly so. 10/10 recommend you visit Guilin/Yangshuo, if only for the nature rather than the cities.

Not much going on in the town, but good enough for some places to eat and buy some souvenirs

Hong Kong

I’ll spare you a recap of the ~8 hours it took us to get from Yangshuo to Hong Kong, but it was something like “train-train-3(!)-immigration-borders-train-hotel”. Around this time it was Feiyang’s turn to get ill, so once we checked in to our hotel, she stayed behind to rest while I went out to try and get some laundry done.

I had bought some e-sims using MobiMatter (use the code JJHAS96592 if you feel the need 😉), and for the most part it had worked fine throughout South East Asia, and even China. However, Hong Kong is a bit of a strange place.

Once I had found a laundrette, it was completely automatic. No worries, I had a card for contactless. Ok, Hong Kong has some strange Octopus payment scheme, so not contactless… No worries, I have WeChat pay. There’s no WiFi, but I have an e-sim right? Well, turns out you need to register your identity via a passport scan before using any sim in Hong Kong, so they can explicitly match up any internet traffic to your identity. WTF?

Anyway, after a quick jaunt back to the hotel to set this up, I finally pay for my laundry and have enough time to quickly check out the view from Kowloon point before I needed to go to sleep.

Probably the most impressive skyline in all of South East Asia. Looking from Kowloon to Victoria

On the way back, I suddenly got a Deja Vu of some of the scenes from one of my favourite cheesy films, Rush Hour 2. In that, Jackie Chan is seen crawling up and fighting on some of the famous Bamboo scaffolding surrounding the cities buildings. I was afraid that 22 years of health and safety regulations would have put an end to this scaffolding practise, or that it was a strange stereotype and bamboo scaffolding didn’t actually exist, but no! The bamboo scaffolding is real!

Imagine Jackie Chan up this

We had two days in Hong Kong, so split it roughly into a day around Hong Kong Island, and a day around Lantau Island.

Victoria Peak

Starting out early, we looked up the top things to do in Hong Kong, and chose to travel up to Victoria Peak to get some good views of the city.

I didn’t quite appreciate this from the night before, but Hong Kong is incredibly hilly. We took the Peak Funicular up to the top, and I’d recommend this to anyone visiting, despite the fact we got lost a few times trying to find the start of it!

Since Hong Kong is so hilly, and was kind of built by whoever was in charge at the time, the roads are a bit all over the place as they follow the contours of the land. We were stuck in Hong Kong park for a good 30 minutes before we could find the right exit, and made sure to swear our way through our clothes running up and down the same hills.

Feels more like a rollercoaster than a train

Once on the funicular, you get another dose of how steep Hong Kong can be, as you climb well over a 30% gradient up to the top.

At the top, you get another glimpse at the density of Hong Kong.

You would have been able to see the infamous Kowloon Walled City were it still standing, but regardless, Hong Kong is still one of the most densely inhabited places you can visit. Almost every building that can be built, has been built as a high rise apartment block.

Sorry for spoiling the view

There’s a certain beauty to it, and it does remind me of a denser, hillier Singapore, but we’ll get to that later.

The rest of the day we spent pretty much just walking around, shopping and eating.

I don’t have any pictures, but we explored some of the famous night markets, where you can buy ay designer bag you want, for £5! We also managed to get apparently the best Dim Sum Feiyang has ever tried, but you’ll have to ask her for the restaurant as I’m quite frankly useless when it comes to food.

Lantau Island

Hong Kong is made up of over 200 islands, of which the bulk of what you might think of as “Hong Kong” is just contained within the Kowloon Peninsula, and Hong Kong Island. Outside of this, are the New Territories, a collection of landmass that were originally inhaled by the British as part of the now-expired 99 year lease, which actually makes up more than 86% of Hong Kong’s total territory.

Lantau Island is the location where you would find Disneyland, Hong Kong Airport (technically reclaimed land), and some beautiful beaches.

We decided to visit because it is also the location of a large Buddha statue that seemed quite interesting to us.

~6km of Cable Car to avoid a half day of hiking, feels worth it

To get there, we took the Ngong Ping 360 cable car all the way to the top. This offers a “crystal” cabin (basically double the price) where you can see through the floor to the passers by below. Not sure it is worth the price delta, but it’s certainly fun to see others in your cabin freak out!

Arriving at the top, we found ourselves intruding on a kind of race event. There were 5k/10k/other races going on around the island, with each of them having to run up and down all of the stairs to the main Buddha statue. My hat goes off to some of these people, who are clearly double my age and twice as fit, so that put some things into perspective at least. They also had to contend with an already crowded staircase swarming with Aunties and clueless tourists alike, so I’m sorry if I got in the way of anyone’s PB.

Feiyang or Buddha?

I wish we had more time on this island, and others, as there are supposedly some amazing hikes you could do!

Lama Island to the South is apparently a bit like Pulau Ubin from Singapore, in that it has mostly been left untouched by technological progress, being kept in a stasis of dirt roads, no internet and simple housing. Whilst I don’t know if this is true or not, the islands still hold some secrets that beg to be explored!

Leaving

Bye, Feiyang! See you in 3 weeks

Feiyang left Hong Kong early in the morning, and I gave her most of my cash so she could get a taxi straight to the airport. Her flight was at 7am, mine not until 2pm, so we parted ways as she head back to England. My own flight back to England is booked 20 days later, departing from Changi airport, so I now have ~3 weeks to get from Hong Kong to Singapore on my own.

I spent some time down by the Kowloon peninsula to think about what I wanted to get up to over the next few weeks. Also, I wanted to reflect on my time in Hong Kong.

After spending some time in Singapore, and having known both were ex-British colonies, I was fully expecting Hong Kong to feel the same as Singapore.

Yet, it felt different.

Hong Kong was much more chaotic, feeling less safe. Despite it also being independent for less time than Singapore, it felt less “Westernised”. Over 90% of the population of Hong Kong are Chinese according to the latest figures, so you don’t get quite the same international mix as you do with Singapore.

Whilst I can’t speak for the population, some citizens we talked to did express some concerns about the new governance. Free speech is no longer as free as it once was, and some inhabitants are struggling to adapt to this power shift. Though the British lease ended over 20 years ago, I feel the nation is still struggling to find it’s own place. Or, struggling to lose it.

I would imagine that the working culture in Hong Kong is very similar to Singapore, but the living conditions appear to be less favourable by most metrics. It is a place I would like to experience fully, but not one that I would readily choose over a similar location, such as Singapore.

That being said, the biggest similarity I felt was the airports. Both were absolutely marvellous.

🇨🇳 Mini-Sabbatical Part 2: Beijing to Chengdu

hello@jamesjarvis.io (James Jarvis) — Tue, 07 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000

This is part of the mini-sabbatical series. Read more here.

Back in Beijing

Gubei was awesome, but the unrelenting march of time moves on, and so we find ourselves on the way back to Beijing.

Along we way we stopped for a quick break to relieve ourselves at a rest stop. Most countries have these places, and they all seem to stand out for different reasons.

For the French, it’s the nice public toilets and picnic benches.

For the British, it’s the fact that Welcome Break somehow have a monopoly.

For the Americans, it’s the strange business-park layout that forces you to drive between buildings.

For the Chinese, it’s the urinals that measure your glucose levels.

Bit surreal, but we continued regardless (I didn’t pay to have it done).

Olympic Park

We still had a couple of hours of sunlight to kill on the way back to the flat, so we thought it would be a good chance to see the buildings that put Beijing on the map for me. The Beijing 2008 Olympic Games Park!

The Beijing Olympic park is not too dissimilar from Olympic parks from other cities to be honest. There is the centrepiece stadium, now used by local sports teams or for concerts. There is of course a huge shopping mall (in this case, under the whole complex) and a few museums to take advantage of the mass transit systems that had to be built.

A few architectural standouts won’t go amiss either, such as the Beijing Olympic Tower (that strangely was only build 6 years after the games). Whilst we didn’t go up it, the views would I’m sure have been incredible.

The last place we visited here was the Olympic Forest Park. For a city so vast and so heavily developed, it is always welcome to escape into nature a bit, and this park absolutely scratches that itch for so many of Beijing’s residents. Even offering bike + kayak rental for a small fee, it’s a quite literal breath of fresh air.

Even though it’s pretty far out (right on the edge of the city, a couple hours to get to for us!), it was absolutely rammed. I could liken it maybe to Hyde Park in peak summer, but with almost zero tourists (as Beijing didn’t really have many outside visitors when I arrived).

The running track that goes through the park was quite comical, with people practically queuing to get past one another, but I digress - clearly it has a strong demand and we must be grateful for it’s existence.

We enjoyed sunset with a short hike, then slowly made our way back to the flat.

Tian Tan Park

More parks!

In the morning, we grabbed ourselves a Chinese pancake and McDonalds coffee (don’t judge me) from near Feiyang’s flat, and set out to tick some more items off the Tripadvisor list.

Tian Tan (also called the Temple of Heaven) is one of the largest parks in Beijing, or at least the largest one located centrally. Within it, you’ll fine a well landscaped park, complete with many areas for the traditional “Auntie Dance Class”.

This was probably my favourite thing that I saw throughout Asia that I really wish the West had more of. If you are retired, you need to keep fit somehow, so why not join a group and dance to some wildly out of genre tiktok pop songs in a group? I loved it!

There were some Uncles joining in, but typically they would join the Uncle Class, who would be trying out some other activities such as Tai Chi.

We spotted one absolute legend of an Uncle travelling around on his new toy, a motorised suitcase.

The legend in question

Not quite sure what he was trying to do here, as the suitcase was walking pace, and the cobblestone actually forced him to fall over a couple times, but it was funny to see so I grant him that.

In the center of the Temple of Heaven is the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests, and the highest concentration of school field trips.

I am ashamed to admit that I learnt almost nothing from the countless temples we visited. Big fan of the architecture, but I just can’t recall anything in particular that stood out about this temple.

Lama Temple

The Lama Temple. Why can’t all buildings be this pretty?

In an attempt to experience more, on recommendation from Feiyang’s Mum, we went to visit the Lama temple.

This was the first Buddhist temple I had ever visited, and what first struck me as intriguing were the large communal Censers.

The idea is that you pick up 3 sticks of incense (specifically 3, to transcend towards equilibrium, stability and infinity). Upon lighting your incense, you stand in front of the Censer, say your prayer and place them inside to burn with the rest.

Very peaceful, I really enjoyed the atmosphere. I was also perhaps starting to get a bit lightheaded from all of the smoke.

Summer Palace

Summer Palace is a must visit if you are in Beijing for more than a week.

Not to be confused with the “Old Summer Palace” (just down the road, but destroyed by the French+British in the mid-1800’s), it is a wonderful example of traditional architecture blending in with nature. Of course, all places this beautiful are mired in some form of controversy. For the Summer Palace, a significant proportion of funds that were supposed to be used to upgrade the Chinese Navy were instead rerouted to expanding the Summer Palace in celebration of the Empress’s 60th birthday.

Stunning views from the top

Besides it’s history, nowadays it is simply a tourist attraction that can be booked through WeChat, with great views over the surrounding area, and some great walking routes around the expansive and well maintained gardens.

We were visiting in late October, so the nights were beginning to draw in a bit earlier, but sunset gave this place a mystical feeling, and as we walked back to the car, past street artists along the promenade of the lake, we took some time to slow down and watch the sun set.

Museums

Entering our second week in Beijing, we were struggling to find things to do.

The issue with accidentally aligning our trip with the Belt and Road conference, was that whilst the weather was amazing the previous week, all major attractions near Tiananmen Square were shut. Now that the diplomats have left, a huge wave of bookings via WeChat meant that the Forbidden City along with most other attractions had sold out. Top Tip: Book tickets on WeChat well in advance. Supposedly 85k tickets are available for the forbidden city every day, and they sell out in minutes.

Also weirdly enough, as soon as the diplomats left, the pollution came back.

Despite the health warning, we climbed up a hill to see this view

Better luck next time, I guess?

I still have a few more things to see in Beijing before I can consider it “ticked off”.

The National Museum of China

The National Museum of China is one of the largest museums in the world (I actually can’t tell whether or not it is the largest, it didn’t feel as big as the Louvre to me).

The Road to Rejuvenation, this section covered the distressing starts of the cultural revolution

We saw one chunk of it, with the impressive but quite politicised The Road to Rejuvenation exhibit covering the highs and lows of the Chinese people over the last 200 years. Since the start of the CCP it has apparently been all highs.

Of course, I’m not blind to propaganda from all sides, and naturally you wouldn’t expect a museum funded by a government, showcasing all of the recent failures of that government.

He who controls the past controls the present

As we cycle back through Tiananmen Square to head back to the flat, I admire the famous smooth face on the wall, and wonder what he’s seen over the years perched up there.

I wanted to get closer but honestly couldn’t figure out how to traverse the square, I think I needed another WeChat booking

Adventures in Xi’an

I knew absolutely nothing about Xi’an (much as I did with the rest of China), but there are 2 things I will remember about Xi’an. The Wall, and the Statues.

Terracotta Army

As we pull up to the compound early in the morning, we are faced by a veritable sea of Aunties. No need to worry though, having researched beforehand the fastest route to Pit 1, and armed with our younger legs we pace our way to the front, being some of the first to enter the halls that morning.

Thousands of intricate, lifesize soldiers, built around 70 generations ago

As the morning light streamed across the hall, it was a bit corny to say that it was a special sight, but it truly was.

You can read up about the army from many other sources if you want to learn more, so I won’t bore you too much. However something you might not have realised (I didn’t) is that each soldier was once beautifully and vibrantly painted, and this paint was in fact still present when the soldiers were first unearthed in the 70’s.

Imagine his armour a deep purple, with red and yellow accents

50 years of public display and tourism subsequently caused this paint to fade and flake away, cautionary tale of how tourism and the commercialisation of history can erode history itself. Leaving the museum, we walk past a McDonalds, Starbucks and a cinema, the irony entirely lost on us.

The Wall

An almost perfect rectangle with a 14km circumference.

We rented a couple of bikes and marvelled in amazement at what an architectural achievement it must have been to build this defence system so well, so long ago (though only around 500 years in all fairness).

At night, there was some kind of theatrical performance inside the main building by the south gate, and the entire perimeter is lit up by LEDs, truly one of the best cities to visit whilst in China.

A park, some shops, and a Buddhist temple

Outside of the wall are the usual suspects of cool places to visit in a chinese city: A park, some shops, and a Buddhist temple.

I can’t remember the name of this park, but it was pristine

I can’t remember much about the park, besides the fact that it was quite expensive to enter, pretty empty, and had a wonderful light/fountain show in the main lake.

As for the shops, there is this ridiculously over the top main street, with interactive artwork, public performances and at least a dozen electric car brand showrooms flanking either side of it.

On the electric car topic, China is so full of such high quality electric cars that it boggles the western mind.

We saw everything from small electic Jeep knockoffs for £8k (my favourite), to £25k Tesla-esque cars, all the way up to the wackiest £16k car for babies. I don’t really know how to explain it, but they have built a car that is custom designed to fit 2 parents and a baby. The front seats turn around to view the kid, there is a camera in the back trained on the kid with a live view up front, and special baby bottle warmers under the arm rests. I don’t necessarily think that it would be the best purchase decision, but they seemed to have some kind of leasing program where you graduate into a proper car after a few years, so I guess it works fine for whatever audience they are targeting…

The temple we visited was pretty memorable, but only for childish reasons (I never seem to learn too much from my travels).

The Giant Wild Goose Pagoda

In the centre sat the Giant Wild Goose Pagoda, an impressive tower that bears no resemblance to a goose.

In one of the surrounding buildings, an intricate wooden carving of The Journey to the West.

Culture is frankly lost on me

Feiyang tried her best to explain it to me, but I couldn’t quite get over how some dude, a pig, a monkey and a horse could really get along with each other.

Disappointment in Chengdu

Ever since first trying “proper” chinese food (according to Feiyang), I had fallen in love with the Sichuan pepper.

As a direct result of this and the allure of seeing pandas where pandas are from, I made sure to extend our route all the way West to Chengdu, despite the considerable length of time we would be stuck on trains.

Upon arriving in Chengdu however, I was unfortunately hit like a train by what I think was probably the O.G. of COVID-19 strains.

This meant we had to sadly cancel our Panda visit, and I spent all day in bed at the hotel whilst Feiyang went cafe hopping, revising for her exams and reading her books.

I did manage to crawl out of the hotel for just long enough to get a proper Sichuan hotpot at a Jay Chou themed restaurant. Boy was it spicy!

Those are tears of joy, and a 50/50 blend of spicy/covid nose running

🇨🇳 Mini-Sabbatical Part 1: Shanghai to Beijing

hello@jamesjarvis.io (James Jarvis) — Wed, 03 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000

This is part of the mini-sabbatical series. Read more here.

Landing in Shanghai

Looking like a proper tourist, I leave my hotel in Singapore for the last time

My flight is at 8:05 AM from Changi.

A week ago I had bought a backpack just for this trip, 2 days ago I started packing, yesterday I dropped off the rest of my stuff with a coworker to pick up on the way back.

I’m ready. Despite the comforts offered to me in Singapore, I feel well prepared for the next 6 weeks living out of this bag. I have sampled the food, hung out with the locals, I feel like I know what to expect from China, and yet it still occasionally feels mysterious.

My girlfriend, Feiyang (王飞扬), has been travelling from London since the day before, due to arrive in Shanghai Pudong International Airport just after I leave from Singapore, so we’ve planned to meet up at the hotel while she spends the morning with an old school friend.

I board, so eager to land I forget whatever I was reading on the flight.

On arrival, I’m immediately reminded that China is not-quite-Singapore, not-quite-Thailand.

Scammed by a taxi

Stepping out of the international arrivals section, a guy comes up to me in a suit, claiming he works for the airport (with an official looking pin on his blazer to qualify himself).

“Do you need a taxi?”

I still believe taxi’s are “basically free”, from my experience so far around South East Asia and, besides, none of my translation/navigation apps work and I can’t read Mandarin well enough to communicate with anyone. So I say yes.

We proceed to walk towards, and then straight past, the Taxi pickup zone, and towards the car park. “Uh, taxi’s are here?” I point to the queue of at least 15 official taxis, with a matching orderly queue of prospective passengers.

Never mind that, we continue into the car park, where a very fancy looking xpeng electric car is awaiting me.

“How much?” I ask, expecting roughly £15 worth for the 40 minute drive.

“550”. This is in Yuan, so my basic maths of converting to GBP already tells me I’m getting ripped off.

Unfortunately, I have absolutely no idea how much things cost in this part of the world, my first impressions are that this place costs roughly the same as New York.

“I only have 300” I reply, opening my wallet to prove what little Thai Baht or Indonesian Rupiah I had exchanged on departure had afforded me about half a taxi’s worth of currency.

No worries though, the man happily shoves his hand into my wallet, takes the cash (all of the cash I had) and waves me into the Taxi.

Welcome to China!

In the taxi, I test out my esim + Wechat account, thankfully it works. Feiyang helpfully informs me I’ve been ripped off, and that I should have got one of the official taxis, obviously.

The Bund, choking on intestines

We meet at the hotel, but head straight for the Bund to see the sights, and have dinner with her friend.

First time seeing each other for 3 months

The place is so crowded! Every restaurant appears to require a booking (not sure why I’m surprised, London is the same), and the sea of people in and around the Bund is only broken by the occasional Chinese military sentry guard, standing like a statue on a plinth.

At the hotpot, amongst many kinds of meat and veg, we ate some duck intestine. Normally this would be fine, but my recent decision to get braces meant that I could no longer chew very well.

So I swallowed it whole, or at least most of it. The end bit got caught on a piece of my braces, leading me to perform the final act of a sword swallower and pull out the entire 30cm strand of intestine from my throat, with the accompanying gagging.

On this street is a Huawei shop directly opposite Apple, selling totally-not-copied wares

Great first impression with China, and Feiyang’s friend. We went back to the hotel shortly afterwards, tired from the days events!

China or Europe?

Day 2 we started with a coffee and croissant from the very European feeling old streets.

Shanghai or Europe?

Shanghai in general felt very westernised. It was clear that it was somehow different to the rest of China, but we couldn’t quite put our finger on it. The Bund was famously owned by various European trading companies, and it’s banks are lined with European inspired architecture, but aside from this there was also a slightly different feeling to the people there. It might have something to do with the fact that Feiyang was asked twice if she was a model, so that made us feel quite cool.

Checking out the Chenghuang temple area, we stopped for some lunch.

This was a peculiar mix of very ancient religious temple, with a disney-esque commercial building, with tourist shops, buddhist temples and gold jewellery shops side by side.

Pretty bridge with a tea house in the middle

Continuing with the European strangeness, I had my first experience with the Chinese nouveau riche as we had dinner in Xintiandi. For those who don’t know, it’s basically like the Covent Garden / Mayfair of London, complete with Lululemon, On Running and DJI shops (to summarise our personalities).

Not something I expected in such a recently wealthy country, but then again totally understandable. This would continue to be a theme with all big cities we visited throughout China. Luxury is IN.

Luxury is IN in China

Oriental Pearl

Of course, no trip to Shanghai would be complete without the obligatory trip to the Oriental Pearl TV Tower.

Built in 1995, the city has extended skywards around it. Whilst it used to be a TV broadcast tower (back when TV was delivered by these large broadcasting antennae), it is now purely a tourist attraction, with a rotating restaurant, and weirdly misplaced arcade inside the red balls.

I didn’t realise this, but it is also designed to look very similar to a sort of sugary caramel street snack (balls on a stick). I think I prefer the look of the building to the taste of this snack though.

You can get some great views though! Both looking out, and looking down…

The pollution and skyscrapers extends as far as the eye can see, in all directions

Why can’t all skyscrapers have glass floors?

Day 4, have you settled in yet? Good. Let’s go to the Capital.

Beijing

Trains are quick in China, Shangahi to Beijing in < 5 hours

Meeting the GF’s Family

We didn’t mean to stand in height order

“Isn’t he cold?”

I had packed for a 6 week long beach trip, without first checking the weather in Beijing.

It’s 14 degrees and I look like a complete mug in my shorts and birkenstocks.

The language barrier is quite the challenge, but we seem to get along just fine as they drive us from the train station and around the city (past Tiananmen square and the Mao photo). We stopped for a hearty meal then back to the parent’s district where Feiyang and I checked into a hotel opposite their flat. Still easing in gently.

Awoke to the sound of military training

In the morning, we are accompanied to views of the sprawling suburbs of Beijing. The expansiveness of Beijing drew parallels with Los Angeles in my mind. The benefit to Beijing is that even though the easiest way to travel is by car, it at least has a functioning metro system.

We are roughly 9 miles from central Beijing. A mere 20 years ago this would have been right in the boonies, as evident by the remnants of farms and military training grounds nearby (we actually awoke to the sounds of horns and distant marching beats!)

Nowadays however, this is prime commuter belt territory, and we took advantage of the tube system every day to get around. Weirdly, I had to scan my passport to enter the tube! Why?

Belt and Road Summit

Well, turns out the week we decided to come to Beijing was the week of the annual Belt and Road Summit, with Putin in attendance.

We would later find out that this high profile summit substantially changes Beijing for it’s duration. For one, there was almost no pollution whatsoever (to later change). For another, the security was tight.

The yellow barrier in the background had passport checks

We were happy though!

This was our current issue - if you wanted to get anywhere near Tiananmen square, you needed to scan your identification, and even then you are not actually allowed in the square, designed to hold 1 million people. Since 2021 you have needed to book entrance to the square, to avoid the spread of ~~contrarian ideas~~ COVID.

These guys were more tourist attraction than guards

Given the fact that all museums and typical attractions were closed, we decided to spend the rest of the day visiting some of Feiyang’s favourite districts, and going shopping to get me some slightly warmer clothing.

Getting a few rental bikes was very easy via WeChat, and I must say that Beijing offer some of the most comfortable cycling paths I’ve ever experienced from a major city!

Cycling is fantastic in Beijing

Not much else to note from our shopping trip, but it seems that Beijing may have accidentally hired too many reserve police for the week of the B+R Summit, we kept tripping over police cars and off duty officers.

Uniqlo must be a national security risk

Qianhai

Beijing was all a bit of a blur, but I do remember Qianhai as one of my favourite spots.

A short cycle away from Tiananmen Square, it is a little region surrounding Jingshan park and Qianhai lake, where you can get lost amongst old traditional houses-turned-shops, before eventually winding up around the lake for unbeatable sunset views.

Secluded canal walk to the lake

A great place to have a cocktail and watch the sun set

We met up with another of Feiyang’s old friends here for hotpot, this time I didn’t make a fool of myself, but some fascinated locals seemed to want to try out their broken English with me - they say they hadn’t met a white person before. I called bull, even as I realised I also hadn’t seen another westerner since leaving Singapore.

Traditional Beijing Hotpot

By this point in the trip, we’ve finally hit the weekend and Feiyang’s parents have promised they would take us on a trip out of town! So we hop in the car for a few hours drive. I’m starting to worry about Feiyang’s Dad’s driving. She gets her good eyesight from him, and he was making full use of the hard shoulder in each traffic jam. We eventually made it though.

I’m completely clueless about what to do around here so I didn’t even know the name of the place, but later found out we would be spending some evenings in Gubei Water Town!

Gubei Water Town

Traditional looking entrance, with a Starbucks inside. Highly recommend the Black Tea Soy Latte.

Gubei Water Town was probably one of my favourite places I visited in China.

I know, that’s a bit of an uninspiring statement, since it’s all quite artificial, but there was something about it I really enjoyed. As far as I know, the town is not actually a historical water town, but a replica of the Wuzhen Water Town from the south of China, and only around 500 years old.

But it’s not just some quaint old village. The whole place has been converted to house discreet museums, tea houses, restaurants, activities and hot springs in amongst the ancient streets. Maybe it was more surprising for me since I couldn’t read any of the maps.

Willow trees enchant this village

Not least, I loved it because it was just so beautiful! We were visiting in Autumn, and the red leaves and crisp air yielded some great sights.

Never did end up hiking to this tower, but I think it was smaller than it appeared

The Wangs

Me in Gubei

We even found some smol cats

Cultural Site

Once we peeled our eyes away from the colourful trees, we ended up stumbling into a few of the town’s cultural heritage sites.

Yongshun Dye House was 90% instagram hotspot, 10% museum

A bit ashamed to admit I took almost no photos of the ancient textiles factory, alcohol distillery, replica villagers house or the public traditional chinese theatre. You just have to trust me that they existed, and were really interesting, I promise.

I do however have this one sick photo of me surprising everyone at archery.

If you look really closely, you can see my concentration face. If you look even closer you can see my opponent on the left was not impressed

Whilst I’m not actually much good at it, I at least wasn’t useless, which can only be a welcome surprise for the people who have watched me choke on hotpot and fail to converse in basic sentences with them for the last week.

Great Wall

長城

It’s been looming over us since we arrived in Gubei.

長城, Changcheng, Great Wall.

You hear about it so much, “it can be seen from space”, “500,000 people died building it”, “the locals dismantled it to build houses”. It feels like it should be a pilgrimage, an arduous trek up a mountain to touch this world wonder.

Nah, turns out you can just take a cable car right to the top!

The views were incredible, but this stretch of the Great Wall (Simatai) is not particularly long. You find yourself cut short, unable to go beyond a few of the towers, beyond which the wall returns back to a ruinous state.

I stared at this view for ages, trying to sear it into my memory

Hot Springs

In the evening, we returned back to Gubei and decided to visit one of the Hot Spring baths. By this time the temperature had plunged to ~3 degrees.

I had been to a few of these places before, I remember the Széchenyi baths in Budapest, a vast hot pool to fit hundreds of people. When I last visited, the air was -15C, with the steam from the baths causing my towel to freeze solid.

These baths were much smaller and, calmer. There were maybe 10 small pools indoors and one outdoors, all at varying temperatures between 33 and 46 degrees, with varying mineral content.

I’m less used to this, so whilst Feiyang and her family jumped straight into the hottest one, I took my time to work my way up. I don’t want to feel like the boiling frog!

The view from the outside pool was mesmerising. I don’t know how, but these city planners had managed to cram an LED into every single nook and crevice of each stone wall of Gubei. The results were astonishing, with the already-too-good-to-be-true town transforming into a movie set overnight!

I wish I took photos, but my phone was dead by this point, so you’ll have to do with what everyone else has already taken.

It might seem a bit touristy (and it is), but I’d recommend giving Gubei a visit if you have a bit too much time in Beijing. It’s a remarkably calming place.