At last found a few moments in the day, actually three hours, to use the computer. Get a cup of tea and some biscuits, this is all that has happened since the last blog.
We've now travelled around the North East of China and currently heading back towards Beijing in time for our Hep A+B jabs. This should be us all vaccinated for India and, oh yeah, the rest of Asia!
We left Harbin, Saturday the 25th, for Yanji. The train was a 14 hour seated marathon with smelly people staring at the new attraction, us. The toilets were special, but at least the windows opened so I got a little air while I squatted in less than hygenic surrounds.
Disaster struck... we started to get funny tummies! Oh dear, our run-down bodies had not reacted too well to something we had eaten/drunk. Kate spent three days with horrid stomach cramps, and I had to go to the local pharmacy and act out her problems.... it must have been very funny for the locals watching me jump and squirm on the floor pretending to have diarrhea and tummy cramps. Anyway... the pills worked, even if they smelt very fishy!
I saw the main street in Yanji, boring really, but that was all that was on offer, other than a bridge! Kate saw nothing more than the inside of the hotel room. Nice place!
We left Yanji on Tuesday the 18th, for Songjanghe. A very small and insignificant place, save for the fact that it's the best place to reach Changbai Mountain (A big crater lake in a national park).
What a big hassle getting there! First we took the bus to Erdaobaihe (teeeny town with nothing happening in it), then tried to take the train to Songjanghe, but the train didn't leave until 1:00am. We had arrived at 2:00pm, so we would've had an 11 hour wait. No way! We decided to camp out for a bus, that may or may not go to our destination. At one stage a uniformed man came up and offered to share a lift with us in a taxi to Songjanghe... we synically asked how much he wanted and he told us it's "only Y120 (8 pounds)" "Velly good velly good". He took us for fools! Oh how I laughed nearly falling over with delight!!
The bus is Y40(2.70 pounds) and the train is Y10 (60 pence) each. So we waited, and contiuned to smile while telling him to sod off. After a few hours the last bus left, they hadn't given us a seat because they wait for other people who want to go further and thus pay more. Common practice. Eventually the uniformed man got more desperate, and the price began to drop. We resisted, "make it cheaper", "too expensive", we kept saying.... and at the end we got him downto Y25 (1.60 pounds) each, a little more expensive than a bus/train but a quicker and more comfortable ride in a taxi.
The journey was 2 hours along dirt roads etc, sunning scenery and fresh mountain air. In Songjianhe we got dropped off right outside our hotel that we had organised over the phone. We'd found a telephone number of a place thatdid rather cheap sounding tours of Changbaishan with accom and food included so jumped at the chance!! When we arrived the lovely girl who spoke wonderful English (her name is Oprah) on the phone greeted us with the manager of the hotel. Our room was amazing - huge - and everyone seemed to be bending over backwards for us... nice. We had a delicious supper of rice, eggs, beef etc and collapsed into bed exhausted after our tiring journey. On Wednesday morning we were up eating breakfast at 7am and then went through to settle our bill before getting in our tour bus for the day. That was when disaster struck!! We'd been talking of paying 300 dollars for the accom and food and tour all inclusive... so I started to hand the manager Y300 (Chinese currency). But oh no... she simply looked agast, shook her head and got Oprah to explain that she wanted US$300!!! WHAT?? TIME TO RUN AWAY!
When the realisation of what she was saying finally got through to our brains we were in dispair!!! No wonder everyone was being super nice and friendly and giving us free drinks all the time... we were supposedly paying through our noses for it all!! Yikes. Not sure how they thought that 2 young people walking around in the same clothes for 3 days straight could afford that kind of price... but still. We slowly explained that we had no US currency on us, the manager got cross and then demanded UK pounds! Again, we explained that all we had were yuan and after a bit of a grump she agreed that we could pay in yuan. The total price came to over Y2,700 (185 pounds)!!! And when you think that we were expecting to pay Y300 (20 pounds) you can imagine just what went through our heads. Turds delux.
After many long discussions and apologies etc etc... we managed to get a really good deal. We agreed not to have Oprah come with us as a tour guide and rather do it all ourselves, not to eat at the hotel anymore and to move to another smaller room for the next night. Oprah was amazing and managed to bargain down all the prices for us to something we could afford... somewhere around Y800 (55 pounds). Still more than we wanted to pay but we both really wanted to see Changbaishan so agreed that it was ok.
The day turned out to be amazing!!! We took a bus for 2 hours through the gorgeous mountainside, eventually arriving at the base ofChangbaishan - a huge crater lake formed from a volcano that was over 3 million years old (or something like that)! We had to hike up more than 1300 steps to the summit... and when we got there we were just amazed!! One of the most beautiful places in the world was now in front of us. A huge crater lake surrounded by mountains, volcanic ash and rocks all over the place. It was just stunning. We sat up there and ate our lunch and marvelled at the beauty of nature. Later we took the bus to another tourist attraction in the region - a big gorge with stick-y-out-rock things formed when the volcano erupted. Also lovely but not as striking. We arrived back at our hotel, asked for help getting a train ticket toDandong, and that was that! We had a lovely supper of beef kebabs and a roll each for Y5 together (that's about 30 pence), walked to the train station to buy the tickets and got to bed.
On Thursday morning, we took the train to Dandong - a lovely little town that we came to to see North Korea. The train journey was another nightmare-ish ride... 16 hours of sitting!! Sore areses all round. In Dandong we went on the bridge that crosses the Yalu River, the naughtyAmericans bombed the bridge during the Korean war, so you walk half way and the bridge ends... but it is great to walk half-way into the river and there are plenty of cool shrapnel marks from the bombs. You can't actually go into N. Korea unless you're a cool nation and you have the money to pay through the nose (Y8000 or550pounds) to go on an expensive tour, where the rules stipulate that noone can talk to the locals or leave the bus and there is a strict itinerary. In fact Americans, South Koreans and a handful of other nations are NOT allowed to enter N. Korea, even on a tour.
All we would see on the tour are lots of statues and poor people anyway! While on the bridge we saw North Korea... well actually just lots of bushes, fishermen and children playing. Dull, but only a few people can say they've seen N.Korea :)
After another day in Dandong, hand washing ALL our clothes (oh yes, my hands are covered in sores and dry!) we headed for Dalian. A great big city full of European architecture. Impressive because of the wide streets, clean pavements and clean people. Very convienent, too. However the flip-side was expensive hotels, even outside the city, and not much to do but look at the clean pavements and clean people. We could have gone shopping, but that's just silly when we have a tight budget.
A lovely old man spotted us and spoke really good English, (another strange phenomenon in this city) and wanted to help. We asked for a cheap place to stay..... oh dear, not so easy. We walked in a large circle for over 2 hours asking small hotels and even found two hostels from the guide that no longer exsited! Great. Anyhoo (thank's Katie) we settled for the cheapest place we could find and made plans to leave sharpish before all our money was spent on lavish two star hotels at peak season! A lovely room, but we couldn't justify Y188 (12 pounds) a night for this place! No choice but head straight back for Dandong (4 hours on a bus) again to stay in the friendly, clean hotel for Y60 (4 pounds). We've decided we really like Dandong... its clean-ish, the people are friendly and realxed in their daily routines, and everything is cheap! We're planning on relaxing here for a few days, maybe see the Great Wall again, before heading off for a new place on the map...
Take care,
MC
