The Gobi Desert – Trans-Siberia Episode 06

Posted by Flip on Feb 20, 2012 in Blog, Trans-Siberia 2010, Video Episodes | 5 comments

 

Our trip on the Trans-Siberian Railway took us through one of our most memorable countries ever. Mongolia was truly an unforgettable experience. The first half of this portion of our trip, the Gobi Desert, is presented in this brief 4 minute video. Also, you will learn that the toilets in the Gobi are almost as nice as those at home.

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The Great Wall – Trans-Siberia Episode 05

Posted by Flip on Oct 1, 2011 in Blog, Trans-Siberia 2010, Video Episodes | 0 comments

One of the most impressive places to visit in Beijing is, without a doubt, the Great Wall. It was as impressive in person as you would imagine. The secret to getting the most out of a visit here is to arrive as early as possible. If you delay, the crowds will be huge, but the first thing in the morning, you will be one of the only people on the Wall. The second most important thing to know is, if you are visiting the Mutianyu section, you HAVE to take the slide off the Wall when you are finished. It is a four or five minute ride down the mountain and is quite fun. You can see more in the video.

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If You Only Have One Day in Beijing…

Posted by Flip on May 19, 2011 in Articles, Blog, Maximize Experience, Trans-Siberia 2010 | 1 comment

Beijing has a lot to offer, but if you only have one day there, here is a solid itinerary:

Start the day as early as possible with a quick, simple breakfast of traditional pastries, bread, or cake and milk tea at 85°C.

Take a taxi or bus ride to the Great Wall (Mutianyu Section). If you get there early, there won’t be many tourists and you can see it and go. Take the cable car to Tower 14 and then walk on the Wall back to Tower 6. Then ride the toboggan to the bottom, buy your “I climbed the Great Wall” t-shirt, get back in your taxi and head back to Beijing.

Arrive back in Beijing for shabu-shabu lunch at Honyuan Hot Pot. This is an incredible meal that you cook yourself in your own hot pot. Not to be missed.

After lunch, go to the Temple of Heaven Park to walk off your meal. This is a huge open air park with lots of locals walking, hanging out, playing cards or musical instruments. You can walk for an hour or two and then head over to the Forbidden City for a view of how the emperors lived. From this historical site, head across the street to Tiananmen Square to a site with more modern significance.

Take a taxi to Da Dong Roast Duck Restaurant for a Peking Duck dinner that is both traditional and modern (not to mention delicious).

Head back to the train station or airport for your next stop.

There are many more things to see in Beijing, of course, but these are some of the top tourist sites. If you want to get more personal with the locals, you

will hopefully be staying a bit longer and can take your time. This itinerary is for the traveler that is pressed for time and wants to see the highlights. If you are the type that eschews the tourist crowd, you will want to steer clear of the Forbidden City, as it is packed with people. However, I would still suggest seeing the Great Wall, just go really early. It is worth it.

 

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Trans-Siberian Railway Official Start: Beijing (Part 2-The Great Wall)

Posted by Flip on May 12, 2011 in Blog, Maximize Experience, Trans-Siberia 2010 | 5 comments

Our trip to the Great Wall started with an early morning pick up from our drivers. Unfortunately, they turned a 45-minute ride to the wall into a 2-hour tour of the outskirts of Beijing. I was under the assumption that since the Great Wall stretches for thousands of miles, you could just drive north and you would eventually hit it. Apparently these guys didn’t get that, and they had quite a time locating it. Once we got there, though, it was about as incredible as I had imagined it would be. The Wall itself is built along the top of a mountain range, so not only did the ancients build a really long wall, they hauled all of the materials to the top of a mountain to do it.

According to a survey in 2009, the Great Wall was announced to be approximately 5,500 miles long. To help fully comprehend this, the distance from San Diego, CA to New York, NY is 2,432 miles. Although the exact history  is not known, it is commonly understood that the Wall started sometime before 200 BC as a series of walls to keep out foreign invaders. It was eventually unified under the Emperor Qin and then extended or repaired by each succeeding dynasty up through the Ming in the 1600′s. Contrary to popular opinion, the Great Wall is not visible from space (under favorable conditions it might be seen from low-Earth orbit), and from the Moon it is the equivalent of spying a human hair from two miles distance.

The section of the Wall that we chose to visit was Mutianyu.  We rode a cable car to Tower 14 and were nearly alone on the Wall. The pollution was a bit lighter here, so the view was good, but not incredible. The real thrill came with the imagination that at one time soldiers manned these walls to defend their country against the barbarians from distant lands. About mid-way through the walk, we said farewell to Sophia, her husband, Daniel and their son, Charlie. They had to return to Shanghai and we were officially on our own.

We walked the rest of the short distance to Tower 6 and made our way to the toboggan. The toboggan is a slide that takes you back to the entrance to the park and is well worth trying out. Each person climbs on to their own sled and then slides down a concrete path, using a hand brake to maintain control. The ride is at least five minutes and is quite fun and can be very fast if no one is in front of you.

As night fell, we had a few hours before boarding our train. We decided to hit the local night market which we had heard had some fairly exotic food. We were rewarded with a chance to try such fun things as starfish, snakes (with or without skin), sea horses, beetles, pigeons, crickets, centipedes (small or large) and scorpions. We watched a girl eat a scorpion and then went to KFC for some ice cream.

At last, nine days into our trip, it was time to embark on the Trans-Siberian Railway route. Only, it wasn’t the Trans-Siberian Railway. Our first stop was going to be Datong, which was only an overnight ride, and it made more sense to just take a local train to get there rather than the more expensive K3 Trans-Sib train. We boarded a very local, very run-down train, climbed in our bunks for the night, and went to sleep knowing we had officially begun our Trans-Siberian journey.

 

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Trans-Siberian Railway Official Start: Beijing (Part 1)

Posted by Flip on May 5, 2011 in Blog, Maximize Experience, Trans-Siberia 2010 | 1 comment

The highlight of Beijing, aside from the Great Wall, is undoubtedly the food. Sara’s sister, Sophia, and her family met us in Beijing and any time Sophia is along, it is guaranteed to be culinary bliss. None of us, including Sophia, had been to Beijing before, but you wouldn’t know it based on our itinerary. We saw most of the major sites and had some pretty amazing meals in three days.

Sophia hired a driver for us for the three days, so we were able to move fairly quickly around the city without having to wait for taxis or public transportation. While this goes against our ‘Minimize Costs’ philosophy, we were able to split it amongst six people, so it was not too bad. The driver did not speak English, but in our case, this was not a problem as half of our party spoke Mandarin. It should be noted, though, that most taxi drivers do not speak English, so it will be necessary to carry pre-printed note cards of where you would like to go. Be sure they are written in Mandarin and not the pinyin form of the language familiar to English speakers, but totally foreign to the Chinese.  You can print out the addresses at the bottom of this post and hand them to the drivers.

Our first meal was the iconic noodle dish of the Northern region of China, at the famous Haiwanju Beijing Noodles.  Soph and Sara were super excited about this meal, since their grandmother was from the north. This particular noodle dish is the most traditional meal to their family. Every female family member has her own little variation of this dish. The noodles were served plain in a bowl with the eight ingredients all on the side, so you can mix them in as you please. You can order the traditional one with meat sauce, or the vegetarian variation with the sesame sauce. We ordered both and everyone had a taste of each.

After the meal, we had to step out of the restaurant into the open.  The pollution around Beijing is really something to experience. Just as it is difficult to fully comprehend what 120 degree weather in the desert feels like until you have actually felt it, so too is the pollution in Beijing. Sara is asthmatic and pumped herself full of medication the whole time we were there. She still was on the verge of hospitalization most of the time and probably would have had to go if we had stayed another day or two. Part of the pollution problem is due to the rapid industrialization of China and part is due to the proximity of the Gobi Desert, which tends to creep closer to Beijing every year.

One of the sites that I looked forward to the most was a visit to the Forbidden City. Unfortunately, the pollution has really taken its toll on it and I was not as impressed as I thought I would be. There are plans to restore it, but as it stands now, everything (even the indoor exhibits) is covered with soot, the paint is peeling and things are just run down. There is no shortage of visitors, though. It is packed with tour groups with matching hats following flag-waving, bullhorn-toting tour guides.

My favorite meal in Beijing was the hot pot, more well known to Westerners as “shabu shabu”, the Japanese name for this type of dish.  If you have never had it, shabu shabu is a real treat. They bring you a pot of water with a heater underneath to bring it to a boil. Then they bring out an assortment of vegetables, thinly-sliced meat (chicken, pork, beef), spices and sauces and you cook your own meal, just to your liking. It is easy to fill up on a very healthy, but delicious fare. The restaurant we went to was the Honyuan Hot Pot.  It served Mongolian inspired hot pot, featuring lamb, in addition to the regular beef & chicken.  Each person had his own little pot, so you don’t have to worry if your dining companions are under the weather.

An interesting aspect of this trip was a visit to Tiananmen Square in Beijing at the beginning of our journey, contrasting with a visit to Red Square in Moscow at the end. Tiananmen houses the final resting place of Mao Tse Tung and has such an important history in our lifetime. Red Square houses the final resting place of Vladimir Lenin and also has an incredible history. Tiananmen itself is really not much, other than a huge open paved area surrounded by streets and buildings. It is the knowledge of the importance of this square to China and its recent history that makes it so moving to be there. Aside from the Great Wall, this was my favorite thing to see in Beijing.

We celebrated Sara’s birthday in Beijing by having Peking Duck at one of the most famous restaurants specializing in this delicacy. Certainly not the oldest of its kind, Dadong Roast Duck Restaurant prepares a more modern style of Peking Duck which is less greasy than the traditional style found in most restaurants. Sara claims it as her favorite meal of the whole trip and we wholeheartedly recommend it. It is even not too bad on the tightwad scale. All six of us were able to eat for US$120 (no alcohol included in this figure and, yes, $20 per person is not cheap, but the meal was pretty unforgettable).

The highlight of Beijing, to me, was the Great Wall (to be continued…).

 

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The Cheapest Way to Buy Trans-Siberian Train Tickets in China

Posted by Sara on Apr 28, 2011 in Blog, Trans-Siberia 2010 | 3 comments

Shortly after our Egypt trip, Flip and I made a decision to go on our dream trip – the Trans-Siberian railroad.  The timing was perfect.  My brother-in-law, Daniel was finishing up his two-year assignment in China.  That meant we would still have a place to stay in Shanghai, and Sophia and her family would be able to join us in Beijing for a few days.  Now the decision was made, I went on to do research.  It surprised me how little information there was on how to buy the Trans-Siberian train tickets for independent travelers.  There were plenty of agencies and sites selling tickets at a premium.  But to get the absolutely cheapest price was not an easy task.  The best resource I found was The Man in Seat Sixty-One. The site has a lot of information.  I do recommend travelers read through the section on the Trans-Siberian.  However, there was no information on how to buy international train tickets in China.  You can’t just walk up to a train station and buy the tickets at the counter.  All the information I found seemed to tell me that the only way was to use a travel agency.

Obviously, I was not going to take that for an answer.  So I went on to search the answer on Chinese sites.  And it really didn’t take me long to find the Chinese Tourism Board’s Official Agency site, CITS.  From there I quickly found my answer.  We had to go into one of their offices in person, bring our passports, show our Russian visas, then we could purchase the international train tickets.  If you can read Chinese, here is the link to the Price Page.  On the site, there is a page showing all of the CITS offices, but I am not sure if every office listed is able to sell international train tickets.

On the morning of September 4, 2011, we arrived in Beijing by train from Xian.  Soph had arranged a driver for the day, since we had a total of 7 people in our group, including my little nephew, who was two years old.  The driver took us to the Beijing International Hotel.  The CITS head office is located in the hotel’s West Lobby.  Once we were there, it was straight forward and easy to buy the tickets.  The staff spoke English and were super nice.  You can buy tickets for trains K3, K19, K23 & K27 here.  All other international trains are Russian or Mongolian.  You will have to buy tickets either through an agency or from the train station in the respective country.

If  you can’t speak Chinese at all, here is the address of Beijing International Hotel.  Print it out and hand it to the taxi driver.  When you walk in the lobby, go towards the left, there is a corridor there.  And you will see the CITS office.  Before you leave, use the restroom.  They were very nice!

 

 

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Trans-Siberia Episode 04: Xi’an Train Station

Posted by Flip on Mar 29, 2011 in Blog, Trans-Siberia 2010, Video Episodes | 2 comments

Our first train in China commenced from the Xi’an Train Station. Over 6000 miles later, we still had not found a crazier station (although Beijing was close). What a way to break into the mass-transit experience. While this is not on the Trans-Siberian route, it marked the beginning of our train trip across Asia, ending in St. Petersburg, Russia. We took the overnight train from Xi’an to Beijing (the terminus of the Trans-Siberian Railway) on a very nice train.

Some notes on this train:  The sleeper cars were very clean and it was a nice way to ease into life on a train. It was very comfortable, although all we did was sleep. Once we awoke, we had arrived in Beijing. The bathrooms were clean at the beginning, with a choice of the traditional sit-down toilets or squat toilets.

One additional comment for all of those women who complain and complain when a man leaves the toilet seat up. Well, too bad for you, on this train they leave them down and, let’s just say, you better get in there early because proper aim on a train is IMpossible. Later trains had a hook which held the seats up at all times, but for some reason this train either did not have them, or no one used them.

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Xi’an: So Much History!

Posted by Flip on Mar 18, 2011 in Blog, Maximize Experience, Trans-Siberia 2010 | 0 comments

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The ancient legend, passed down from generation to generation, told of the first Chinese emperor who was so afraid of the afterlife that he arranged to bring thousands of warriors to guard him when he passed on. It was not important that they had not yet died. They were buried alive with him when he died, along with gold, food, livestock, clothing and anything else he would need in the next world.

This was a legend that every Chinese child was taught as historical fact in school for thousands of years. It was something they all believed as much as we Americans believe in Washington crossing the Delaware. Thousands of people buried alive just to appease one man’s ego. It seems difficult to believe, but was it true? No one knew for sure, until about 35 years ago.

One day in 1974, a poor farmer needed to dig a well to irrigate his land. As he dug, he came across some ceramic material and was not sure what it was. He thought that it might be valuable, so he contacted the local authorities. It turned out to be the answer to the myth of the buried soldiers. The government took over the land and eventually discovered thousands of clay (terracotta) figures. Unfortunately, they were all in pieces, but once they were reconstructed, it was discovered that each figure was individual, based on a real person. It seems that the legend was real, at least in part.

Xi’an, formerly Chang’an, is the home of these Terracotta Soldiers, tasked with guarding the first emperor of China in the afterlife. Currently, this is what Xi’an is known for and the city serves mainly as a tourist destination. However, Chang’an was the capital of several dynasties of ancient China and the history here is rich beyond most, if not all, Western destinations. The silk road, the ancient highway connecting the East with the West, begins in Xi’an. Several pivotal battles were fought here. A 500,000 year old man was found nearby. But, probably the most significant historical occurrence was when the Chinese monk, Xuanzang, brought Buddhist scriptures back from India and transformed the country’s religion into what it is today (more or less).

Xi’an is, today, a city for tourists. I am not at all a fan of an organized tour group. If I want to hang out with a bunch of old, white Americans, there are plenty of places in the U.S. where I can get my thrills. However, I do feel like there are certain times when hiring a private guide is well worth it. With the right guide, you can get the inside scoop on things, learn a little history and even save some money if he is trustworthy and helps you avoid the tourist traps. We were fortunate that our guide was honest, knowledgeable and spoke excellent English.

We spent two days with Rafael of Xi’an Auto & Tour Company. He is not your average tour guide. First, he did not take us souvenir shopping (although he said that he would if we wanted to). Second, we had already secured hotel accommodations outside the city, but he told us that if we stayed there, we would really be spending most of the time in the car. Instead, he found us a non-tourist hotel, for less than we were paying (which was already very low), right in the middle of the city, walking distance to the night market. Let me explain the non-tourist hotel. This is a hotel that is not licensed to market to tourists and foreigners. They are allowed to let them stay in the hotel, but the foreigners must find it on their own. They are generally cheaper because only Chinese natives know about them. In our case, it was a very nice hotel and very convenient to our touristy destinations.

If you are a regular reader of our blog posts, you might notice that Sara and I tend to get ourselves into sticky situations more often than not. Unfortunately for you, the reader, this time, everything went pretty smoothly. Rafael took very good care of us and drove us to all of the sites, explaining the history in great detail. We saw the city walls, a night-time show, the night market, the Terracotta Soldiers and the Huaqing Hot Spring. (Please note that the Huaqing Hot Spring is the site of the Xi’an Incident, prior to World War II involving Chiang Kai-skek and possibly changing the future of China as we know it. Even though I really enjoy history and thoroughly enjoyed seeing this, I did not want to bore you with the details. Just know that if you delight in reading about and seeing things related to WWII, you do not want to miss this.)

If you would like to see more of our experience in Xi’an, please check out our video and photo gallery.

Xi’an was very calm and orderly with Rafael guiding us. Then, it was time to take our first train ride of the trip. He dropped us off at the Xi’an Train Station, bid us, “Good luck!” and left. We were now on our own, amongst thousands of people, all trying to get on a train. Even though we had Sara with us, who could speak and read Mandarin, the train station was a very hectic experience. There is little English, either written or spoken, in the station. We were supposed to be in a First Class waiting area, where they would announce our train’s arrival, and we were, but so were hundreds of others. When our train came, there was no announcement on the big board, some lady just shouted out that our train was in the station and it was time to board…in Chinese. We have a video on the way with more details…

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I just wanted to add one more detail about the Terracotta Soldiers. The legend taught for thousands of years to the Chinese about the soldiers being buried alive is still believed by some in the older generations of Chinese and Taiwanese. They were taught this as fact for so long that even with the discovery of the Terracotta Soldiers, the belief is still that the soldiers were buried alive and were transformed into clay after burial. It is possible to purchase a mini replica of a soldier as a souvenir, but many Chinese believe they are haunted and will bring you bad luck. Buyer beware!

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Trans-Siberia Video 03 – Xian

Posted by Flip on Feb 28, 2011 in Blog, Trans-Siberia 2010, Video Episodes | 0 comments

Xian, the most famous and historic of China’s ancient capitals, is home of the terracotta warriors, a beautiful city wall and the start of the silk road.

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Huangshan: The Most Beautiful Mountain in China

Posted by Flip on Jan 23, 2011 in Blog, Trans-Siberia 2010 | 2 comments

About five hours into our six hour bus ride from Shanghai to Huangshan, the bus driver pulled off into an area that was obviously not our final destination. He turned and announced something in the local dialect, so even Sara could not understand what he said. Whatever it was, though, it pissed off two-thirds of the people on the bus, because they suddenly erupted into angry shouts. Apparently, he wanted them to get off the bus immediately. This was not their destination. The driver matched their angry words with shouts of his own. He was tough and he wasn’t going to take any crap from these people. The shouting intensified and Sara whispered to me to watch out. We were in the front seats of the bus, between the driver and the masses, not a good position in a riot.

The day had started early in Shanghai. Our friends, Charles and Vina, and Sara and I boarded our bus and were pleasantly surprised to find that we had front-row seats and the bus was almost empty. It was a nice, clean bus and it left on time. What more could one ask for? We suspected our driver might be a con man when, less than hour into the trip, he made an unscheduled stop and picked up enough people to fill the bus. The fare for all of our new arrivals was paid for in cash by one man, who didn’t get on the bus.

The bus finally pulled out, and we were once again on our way. The bus was no longer peaceful, but everyone had seats, so everyone was happy. We were minding our own business, when the shouting started. Sara could catch a few words here and there that she understood and she was visibly frightened. The people on the bus wanted to get to their final destination and the bus driver was absolutely not going to take them. We were stopped in an unpopulated area, and obviously not close enough to where the driver had originally promised to deliver this crowd. The yelling intensified and suddenly the driver darted off of the bus. We did not know what was going on, but the people did not chase him, so this was a good sign.

A few minutes passed and the driver re-boarded the bus and announced to the people that he had secured another van for them that would take them where they needed to go. They seemed satisfied if not pleased, gathered their belongings and left the bus for a much smaller van in which they all needed to fit. As soon as they all disembarked, our bus driver high-tailed it out of there and we never saw the people again.

The bus driver dropped us off at a restaurant where we refreshed, had lunch and waited for our taxi to the entrance to the mountain. Since we only had one night to spend there, we opted for the cable car to the top, rather than the ten-hour hike. When we reached the top, the view seemed like it was from a movie. In fact, it is said that James Cameron based his floating mountains in the movie Avatar, on Huangshan. The clouds filled in the valleys and the peaks of the mountains popped through so they seemed to be floating.

The weather is ever changing on the mountain, so even if it is raining, just be patient and it just might stop and be sunny in 10 minutes. We found the view to be excellent when we arrived, but then it clouded up after we hiked to and checked into our hotel.

You should know that it is necessary to be in decent shape to visit Huangshan. Even if you plan to take the cable car and stay close to your hotel (there are several at the top, but they are not cheap), you will end up hiking up and down hundreds if not thousands of stairs. There is no easy way to go, only more difficult ones.

On such a long trip, each person develops certain noticeable habits that become expected and joked about throughout the rest of the trip. At the top of Huangshan, Charles became known among us as the one who could get things. It seems that our hotel was a bit stingy with the toilet paper (you would be, too, if you had to hike it 10 hours up a mountain). Charles was the man to go to for TP. He quickly made friends with the right person at the hotel and we each had three or four rolls in our rooms. It was a good thing, too, because lunch turned out to be not my friend. (Every trip I take I have at least one run-in with the food)

We hiked for the rest of the afternoon and enjoyed the scenery that has graced the most famous Chinese art for thousands of years. If you see ancient drawings and paintings with steep mountains in the clouds, it is most likely Huangshan. This is one of the top destinations of most Chinese travelers at some point in their lives. During summer months, it can be very crowded, but we were fortunate and the crowds, with the bullhorn-armed tour guides, were somewhat minimal (for China).

Late in the afternoon, Charles and Vina ventured off on their own, with the hopes of catching the sunset, while Sara and I remained in our room, with the hopes of me staying near the toilet. They missed the sunset, but managed to catch a really, really intense downpour. I caught some Imodium and a nap.

Still not feeling great the next morning, Sara and I slept in while Charles and Vina went to see the sunrise. Oops, rain again…no sun. We met up at breakfast and headed out for more hiking. The fog and rain kept us from seeing too much, but it was still a very enjoyable experience. We met some fellow travelers:  Pascal, Remy and Sabine. They were interns from France and Germany, living in China for a year. They had made the mistake of staying in the town of Huangshan, rather than the mountain of Huangshan. It is about a 45 minute taxi ride from the town to the mountain, not to mention the hike/ride up the mountain. They did not seem to mind too much as it is quite a bit cheaper, but if you are going, be sure you know the difference in locations.

The Huangshan experience can be expensive and the crowds can be extreme, but there is a reason that it is famous as a destination in times both modern and ancient. If you are only going to China once in your life, you should consider putting Huangshan on your list of things to see.

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