Monday, October 5, 2009
China: Chenglish
The Urban Dictionary defines Chenglish as: 'inaccurate or faulty translation from Putonghua or Chinese into English, frequently humorous'. Timo and I have to agree, more than once we had to laugh out loud reading translated signs. Have a look at the pictures above. Unfortunately, we forgot to take a picture of my favourite, a motorway sign reading: 'warning continuous downgrading' (translates 'careful long downhill stretch ahead').
Saturday, October 3, 2009
China - The South West
You may be wondering how can you possibly top our experience of the "Katze im Sack Tours"? Bordertrekkers have to say that China is an amazing country to travel in with nearly endless possibilities and after 2.5 months of travelling China there is still plenty of China that needs to be explored. Bordertrekkers certainly will be back for sure!
After our return to Chengdu and more than 5500km in a 4WD, we really needed a rest and our Chengdu friends were so kind to let us stay in their lovely appartment for another relaxing week. It's probably testament to real travellers that we got ichy feed again after this week and continued our adventure to explore China's South West with the provinces Yunnan, Guangxi, Hainan and finally Hong Kong / Macau.
First, we took a flight to Lijiang, an area with a couple of very traditional Chinese villages. It's been great to get out of the cities and experience real traditional village life. Have a look through the pictures above, they will say more than 1000 words and it's been good to see that although all the progress and modernisation that is evident throughout China, traditional village life is preserved for tourists (in the case of Lijiang) and also lived (in the case of Baisha and Shuhe where we stayed).
Further north, the Tiger Leaping Gorge provided a challenging trekking opportunity for our upcoming trip to Nepal. We climbed up steep tracks to the top of the mountain (the apparently 18 bends up there turned out to be 42, but it felt like a hundred). The Tiger Leaping Gorge is one of the deepest gorges in the world with spectacular drops of up to 4000m from the mountain peaks down to the roaring Yangzi river.
After two exhausting days we needed some rest (again) in the lovely town of Dali. Dali with it's old town and the nearby lake is very accessible for Western backpackers with lots of bars, restaurants and hippies, but still managed to keep its old Chinese village charm. We were delighted to find the German owned Bakery 88 for our Leibspeise project (see article on our Leibspeise blog).
A long bus ride followed by a 18h train ride brought us to Guillin which is famous for its karst mountain sceneries and Dragon's Bone Rice Terraces. Unfortunately, we had to separate in Guilin as Gislind had to fly home to her critically ill dad (thanks god, the immediate life threatening situation has passed and he is now on his long way to recovery). Timo continued as single bordertrekker with a cruise down the Li River, plenty of bamboo rafts and mountain bike rides around Yangshou brought these amazing karst mountains perfectly into display.
After our return to Chengdu and more than 5500km in a 4WD, we really needed a rest and our Chengdu friends were so kind to let us stay in their lovely appartment for another relaxing week. It's probably testament to real travellers that we got ichy feed again after this week and continued our adventure to explore China's South West with the provinces Yunnan, Guangxi, Hainan and finally Hong Kong / Macau.
First, we took a flight to Lijiang, an area with a couple of very traditional Chinese villages. It's been great to get out of the cities and experience real traditional village life. Have a look through the pictures above, they will say more than 1000 words and it's been good to see that although all the progress and modernisation that is evident throughout China, traditional village life is preserved for tourists (in the case of Lijiang) and also lived (in the case of Baisha and Shuhe where we stayed).
Further north, the Tiger Leaping Gorge provided a challenging trekking opportunity for our upcoming trip to Nepal. We climbed up steep tracks to the top of the mountain (the apparently 18 bends up there turned out to be 42, but it felt like a hundred). The Tiger Leaping Gorge is one of the deepest gorges in the world with spectacular drops of up to 4000m from the mountain peaks down to the roaring Yangzi river.
After two exhausting days we needed some rest (again) in the lovely town of Dali. Dali with it's old town and the nearby lake is very accessible for Western backpackers with lots of bars, restaurants and hippies, but still managed to keep its old Chinese village charm. We were delighted to find the German owned Bakery 88 for our Leibspeise project (see article on our Leibspeise blog).
A long bus ride followed by a 18h train ride brought us to Guillin which is famous for its karst mountain sceneries and Dragon's Bone Rice Terraces. Unfortunately, we had to separate in Guilin as Gislind had to fly home to her critically ill dad (thanks god, the immediate life threatening situation has passed and he is now on his long way to recovery). Timo continued as single bordertrekker with a cruise down the Li River, plenty of bamboo rafts and mountain bike rides around Yangshou brought these amazing karst mountains perfectly into display.
All these activities needed to be followed by another relaxing week or two on China's only beach island of Hainan where Sanya provided the perfect hangout near the beach with plenty of fresh seafood restaurants. You literally could point at any living seafood creature possible in small aquariums and 15 minutes later you had the best and freshest seafood you could imagine.
The buzzing city of Hong Kong with all its expat bars and clearly British heritage was a welcoming return to a Western culture.
So, how did we like China after travelling around nearly have of this massively big country for 2.5 months? In a nutshell, we simply loved it. Yes, the big city pollution is a problem, so the tight government grip on its citizens and censorship which denies you to access for example blogs or BBC, Chinese spitting habits need some time to get used to, summer can be unbearably hot and communication can be very tricky without speaking the language, but we discovered a nation full of really friendly and helpful people and a diversity of cultures that hardly any other country can match.
So, how did we like China after travelling around nearly have of this massively big country for 2.5 months? In a nutshell, we simply loved it. Yes, the big city pollution is a problem, so the tight government grip on its citizens and censorship which denies you to access for example blogs or BBC, Chinese spitting habits need some time to get used to, summer can be unbearably hot and communication can be very tricky without speaking the language, but we discovered a nation full of really friendly and helpful people and a diversity of cultures that hardly any other country can match.
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