Tourism in China (a few comments)

Tourism in China is developing fast. The government intentionally got rid of 1 of the 3 week-long holidays and spread those days off around to make a few more 3 day weekends in order to encourage more distributed tourism (trust me, travelling during the week-long holidays is generally a nightmare). But it is 'tourism by car' and 'tourism by guide tours'. Public transport is a pain during these times as it is still a mad dash to buy train tickets (only on sale a few days early) and it is still not possible to buy return train tickets in China (ridiculous)!

With now 200 million or more people able to afford to take holidays (in addition to the 200 million migrant workers who use the holidays to travel home to see their families, which affects transport too), China is seeking to develop more 2nd, 3rd, 4th tier tourism sites. The top ones are packed and at over capacity. There are a few cases of some decent tourism management plans, but generally most sites and their surrounding areas explode organically from tourism related entrepreneurial activity.

As people like me try to seek an offbeat travel experience, exploring rural areas, minority groups, unexplored areas and so on, we find it harder and harder. And what right do we have to criticise when others wish to do the same as us?

Well, China is a big country, and there are plenty of bits of land left to explore and plenty of mountains in each of the mountain ranges apart from the 1 famous one that everyone dashes to.

This time we had to get a horrendously slow day-time train that took 9 hours. The most painful moment was watching the Chinese woman next to me throwing all her rubbish out the window of the train -she could not even be bothered to drop it on the floor, where the cleaner would pick it up! Once she missed throwing something out the window and it landed by me, so I left it on the floor whilst trying not to laugh as she gestured at me to throw is out the window. Oh dear; so typical, unfortunately, that a glimpse outside the window on any train will reveal litter strewn along the tracks in pristine countryside. What is remarkable is that these people on the train are educated; they are just, for reason unknown, deciding not to care.

Our seats were actually directly underneath a big sign that was hung width-wise across the carriage telling people not to smoke on the train. Others were smoking further down our carriage but, with the window open we survived. Well, until the last stop, when the guy next to us lit up. I was incredibly angry and asked him if he could read. He just looked bemused (or surprised that i was speaking chinese?) at the foreigner who dared to challenge his undeniable right to smoke. At the same time Chris (who i travelled with) was further down the carriage preparing to get off the train and chatting with another guy about how much he hated smoking. As Chris got off the train, the guy immediately lit up -and got another torrent of abuse from me as I passed by to disembark.

3 days later, as we got off the bus in Beijing I shared a taxi with 2 others to get from the bus station back into town and explicitly explained we would be splitting the taxi bill. I got out the taxi first a mile or two before the other two passengers and passed the taxi driver 20 RMB (a fair amount). He just looked at me like i was a loony. "39 RMB, 39 RMB -look" he said, pointing at the meter. "We are 3 people!" was all I said as I shoved the 20 in his hand and walked home.

Damn, sometimes i have to say, it is hard work living here.. language is always a problem to some extent; but more than that is the attitude some people here have. I am sure every foreigner in every country faces the same problems (racism, discrimination or whatever); what is striking here is that i find some (not all, of course) Chinese people think that as the same time as they have a right to treat foreigners like idiots/differently they believe they are the warmest, nicest, friendliest people. This is what frustrates me -I don't mind them treating us differently, but to think that they are not is what gets me.

This is enough for 1 post i think. In 4 years I have travelled a lot (Chris has travelled even more), going to almost every province and going to the popular places, the not-so-popular places and to just random villages or bits of countryside. I am by no means an expert, but could write more and more... I do just want to point out though, that with everything in life, and especially in China, making generalisations, though necessary in life, is very, very difficult. Here, especially, everything changes, everything is so big and diverse, generalisations are hard to make -but, ultimately, must be made!

Wutai mountain 4 years later

On the joyous occasion of the Founding of the People's Republic of China 59 years ago (next year will be the big 60), the 1st of October marks the start of a week-long public holiday. Unfortunately the government only gives everyone 3 days off, so everyone works the weekend before in order to get the extra 2 weekdays off, and thus have 7 days straight without working.

4 years ago, 3 weeks after I arrived in China, I got up the courage to go off alone knowing only 5 words of Chinese and managed to get to a mountain (and some caves) not that far from Beijing.

It was the first place I went to in China (read the original post here, and excuse the horrendous spelling mistakes as i guess back then spell-checkers did not exist!) and there has been changes.
The town by the mountain is still a tourist-trap, but there are now more temples (not all of the 50 or so temples in the area are centuries old it seems!), more hotels and more people. The good news is the transport situation has improved as more tourists go there (though most still drive from Beijing and, during this October holiday, the main road in the town is a permanent traffic jam) and the prices are lower through increased competition (more restaurants, hotels etc have sprung up).

Last time I only had 1 night and 1 morning which was not enough time to conquer a peak (though we got close). It was always on my list of places to return too. It is one of the famous mountains in China, though not in the top 5 of mountains to climb... partly because there is not just 1 mountain with 1 path (of stairs) to the top (alongside a cable car) as with all the other mountains. Wu Tai Mountain (meaning 5 platforms i.e. peaks) has 5 different 'mountain tops' and all now have roads or tracks reaching them, so tourists drive around each of them.

With more time this time me and Chris hiked 4 hours up to Central peak (2,800m up, though our starting point was probably around 1,800m) which became very tough for the last 200m of height or so from the altitude and camped there. We figured it might be cold up there -but did not expect it to be THAT cold. None-the-less, with thermals, 2 t-shirts and a hooded sweater on I managed to warm up the sleeping bag and get to sleep.

A quick 'head-out' of the tent about 2am revealed a universe above. Truly incredible. I am always impressed by the stars -not just when you can see a couple of hundred, but when you can see thousands and thousands. It is so rare to see even ten stars in a big city. Not since 1 year before when I was in Vietnam had I seen so many stars (even in Malaysia and Philippines, for some reason, there were not that many). What was most surprising was that we were only a 6 hour drive from Beijing and in an area that provides 30% of China's coal (as with 4 years ago, we saw plenty of evidence of that on the bus back) with the accompanying power stations and trucks transporting coal from here across China.

If it was not so freezing cold we might have kept our heads out of the tent for longer. Fortunately in the morning (we watched both sunrise and sunset, and both were pretty), the sun rose and warmed us up as we climbed the tallest peak (North -3,090m) and mosied on down to town for a hearty lunch and bus back to Beijing. During the sunrise we were almost attacked by a dog who had run out of the temple (there are monks living in temples on each peak) to greet us. Let's just say he woke up on the wrong side of his kennel that morning!

So, 4 years later, and tourism has ticked on... no massive changes although it was nice to see more Chinese hikers (there are no real paths to the summit as so few people make it, so each creates their own!) and even some cyclists (going up the road of course, but still pretty impressive!). The entrance fee to the town/mountain had doubled which was not surprising; it seemed the money was spent on building more tracks to the summits, more temples and fancier gardens around the temples.