CHINA June 15-Aug 9, 2023
After 9 months in Africa (finished with Comoros #53/54 African countries), I was looking forward to more functional travel, especially with no corruption and better transportation. But China presents a whole new set of issues. This was my 6th trip to China and was quite different than my last time here in 2017. Accommodation presented my biggest challenge as so few hotels accept foreigners.
China with 1.4 billion people presents an entirely different level of scale. There are people everywhere and “wilderness” per se doesn’t exist. Avoid all travel during the national holidays as all transportation is booked weeks ahead. You will be “stay in place”.
Itinerary. Beijing 3 days (Peking Man WHS). Northeast to see Nomad Mania regions and World Heritage Sites – Tianjin, Liaoning Northwest (Shenyang), Jilin East (Jian, Capital Cities and Tombs of the Ancient Koguryo Kingdom WHS), Jilin West (Changchun), Heilongjiang South (Harbin), Inner Mongolia AR – Central East (Hohhot), Inner Mongolia AR – West (Baotou), Ningxia (Yinchuan, Western Xia Imperial Tombs Tentative WHS), Shanxi South (Tiajuan), Henan North (Longmen Grottoes, Dengfeng – Centre of Heaven and Earth, Anyang – Yin Xu – all WHS), Hebei South (Shijiazhuang), Beijing.
On July 5, I flew from Beijing to Kunming in Yunnan to spend two weeks with my Chinese girlfriend. Yunnan East (Kunming, Chengjiang Fossil Site, Cultural Landscape of Honghe Hani Rice Terraces, both WHS), Yunnan West (Dali), Sichuan East (Chengdu), Sichuan Tibetan Autonomous Zone, Guizhou (Guiyang, Fanjingshan WHS),
On July 17, I continued overland to see Central East regions. Hubei East (Wuhan), Hubei West (Tusi Sites, Wudangshan, both WHS), Henan South (Nanyang), Annui North (Hefei), Jiangsu North (Yangzhou, Migratory Bird Sanctuary WHS), Shandong Inland (Mt Taishan, Temple & Cemetery of Confucius, both WHS), Shanxi North (Mount Wutai WHS), Hebei North (Chengde WHS), Zhejiang (Modan Shan to spend 4 days with my girlfriend, Archaeological Ruins of Liangzhu City WHS, Hangzhou), Shanghai. I have now seen 50/56 WHS and all but 4 provinces in China.
Continue to South Korea, Taiwan, Indonesia, PNG, Australia, and South Pacific “Least Visited Countries” to finish in January 2024 with 190/193 and hopefully over 900 NM regions and 900 WHS. It will have been a long 17 months of travel.
Chinese People. Chinese tend to be not well-liked by Westerners, but I would like to change your mind. They are not socialized like us, are poor at conversation, and have some disagreeable habits (horking, spitting, chew food with their mouth wide open, don’t queue, and not socially aware). After the Civil War that ended in 1949, the Nationalists mostly left for Taiwan. These were the intelligentsia of China. The Cultural Revolution and Great Leap Forward resulted in 30 million deaths and many of the educated died. When 1990 rolled around, most of the people were uneducated peasants, and it is that I think, that explains why the present behaviours persist. I find the conversation issues the most bothersome – I have found them difficult to carry on any discussion about anything. They don’t follow segues or show any curiosity about you and conversations end abruptly.
China since the 90s has progressed like no other country with over 500 million rising out of poverty. That is mostly because they are easily the hardest working people in the world and value education, much more possible with small family sizes.
I am not sure why they have such difficulty answering questions but it is not uncommon to have to repeat things five or more times and still not get an answer? Is it translation issues? I think it has to do with their rote learning style – they simply don’t think in critical logical ways.
But virtually every time I needed help, people went out of their way. You have to profile those you ask – young men and most women are great. When I couldn’t navigate WeChat to pay for things, three times people paid for me and refused remuneration in cash. When I had difficulty finding a place to stay in Hohhot, a woman offered her house. On a train, when my power cord died, a fellow charged all my stuff from the largest power bank in the world. At the Tusi WHS, a woman adopted me, showed me all over, and drove me to the bus. If one were to characterize helpful people, maybe they would be one of the best in the world.
Visa. I had a 10-year China visa (Canada) that expired on July 21, 2023, in an old passport that expired in 2024 and it worked fine. Simply enter before the expiry date and the visa is good for 60 days.
Health Declaration Form. This must be filled out to board your flight and is onerous to navigate as it takes time to figure out the formatting and requires a lot of information. One needs a contact in China with their address and phone number. Simply check the negative 48-hour Covid antigen test (only a self-testing antigen kit is needed, available in drug stores in airports) but the result was never requested, nor was my vaccination record. Submit and get an immediate QR code that is needed to check-in. Mask-wearing is no greater than in most other countries.
Language. I found that the level of English ability seemed worse since my last trip. Basically, only university-educated people speak English (a generalization). I used Google Translate and it worked well. Download Chinese (simplified) for offline use.
VPNs. Necessary to function at all as all the products of Google, Facebook, the Economist, and others are blocked. I found LetsVPN the best and very fast. I also had Express VPN but it was slow. PIA didn’t work at all. NordVPN didn’t accept any of my credit cards and I finally gave up. I could use Google Translate, Google Maps (download offline maps), Search, Gmail, and Facebook with no problem. Get LetsVPN before arrival as it was only in Mandarin in China and impossible to pay without help.
Money. Chinese Yuan Renminbi (CNY). 1US$ = 7.16 CNY; 1 € = 7.76 CNY (xe.com June 2023). Most Chinese don’t use cash but one can still pay for most things in stores, trains, and bus stations with cash. ATMs have no fees. Credit cards work well in most hotels and Western brand businesses. You will still need at least one and preferably both of the following to make money seamless in China.
Alipay. Easy to download, navigate and pay. Make sure to get the Tour version as that is the only one that accepts foreign cards to transfer money into the app. I didn’t realize this and couldn’t transfer money except by using cash to give to anyone to make seamless transfers. It reverted to Mandarin but the prompts are so obvious that I could still use it. Use it to access DiDi, the taxi-hailing app, pay for metros, and to pay for rental bicycles and electric scooters (only works on Hello).
WeChat. Used more widely than Alipay by Chinese. Requires a Chinese citizen to verify you. I could not navigate with my Chinese phone number but could with my Skype phone number that receives SMS. After hours to finally register, it would not accept any of my credit cards that are necessary to complete the registration and unfortunately, I never was able to use WeChat. Try to get this outside the country and it may be easier.
Maps. I used Google Maps which I love as I enter all my NM sites manually for wherever I go. GM is very misunderstood – as I have used it for over 400,000 km of driving, I understand all its quirks and don’t let it mislead me. In China, some of the non-brand name hotels and hostel addresses were not correct on GM. It is best to enter the address and check the location against that.
MapsMe has few of the destinations I like to see and it is not as easy to use. Chinese use Gaode Maps, but it is only in Mandarin.
Phone. China Mobile. I bought a SIM and 30GB for 30 days for 128RMB and added more data later. The small branch offices of Chinese Mobile don’t sell SIMs and I went to the main office in Beijing at 62 Dongai South St to buy it (there are probably other main offices but this is the one I was able to find after a few hours of searching). Coverage is superb with few blank spots.
Transportation. Possibly the best in the world with an extensive high-speed train network that goes virtually everywhere, easy metro and bus transport.
– Renting a car is not possible as one needs a Chinese driver’s license. China would be an easy destination to drive in. Roads are excellent (usually 4-lane divided, new pavement, many tunnels, not one pothole). There is surprisingly little traffic outside of the cities, and not as much as you would expect in the cities. I think the major hazard would be Chinese drivers, not the most competent. My girlfriend drove a rental car and her own car which was very convenient.
– Trains. The old “slow” trains with berths are not as common as previously but I still spent several nights on longer train rides. Soft sleepers have 4 beds, a door, and an electrical plug. Hard sleepers have 6 narrower beds, no door, and no plug.
Pay attention to the station name. High-speed stations usually have a direction in the name (north/bei, east/dong, south/nan, west/xi), the slow ones don’t have a direction. High-speed stations are outside the cities (give lots of time to reach them, many are serviced by metros) and low-speed are in the middle of cities. Occasionally, slow trains leave from high-speed stations. And sometimes fast trains leave from the centre of cities (Wuhan has Hankou and Wuchang in the centre, Chaoyang in Beijing).
The high-speed train stations are remarkable, huge, and easy to navigate without Mandarin. The electronic ticket machines don’t have English and tickets must be bought from live agents in the stations, on Trip.com (which is what I used 100% of the time), or on the China Railway app 12306, which both work well. You don’t need a paper ticket. The number of trains is astonishing but can be easily sold out, especially during festivals and in the summer. There are a lot of people in China which makes for great economy of scale but don’t go during a national holiday without booking well ahead.
Usually, one can’t board until about 10 minutes before departure and they leave promptly. Very fast (about 250-305 km/hour), quiet, comfortable in 2nd class. Chinese board using their Chinese identity card. With a passport, you need to enter manually via the real person at the end of each ticket point along with all the children (children don’t get an identity card till older).
It is astonishing standing on a train platform when a train goes through at 300km/hour.
– Metro. The best and easiest to navigate in the world. Every city has superb signage in the stations and on the route signs in the trains. Use the GM version with public transportation. Tickets are most easily paid for on Alipay (click Transportation and location automatically connects you to the city to get their metro system – then simply scan the QR code on entry and exit), also available from the machines in English and live agents.
– Taxis. DiDi, the Uber of China works on Alipay and WeChat but not on any of the Didi apps on Playstore. Metered taxis are everywhere and usually not more expensive. Catch on the street, show your destination in Translate and the drivers were great to deal with. The older guys were not a humourous lot. It was not uncommon to have to take taxis for long distances.
– Bus. This was not often necessary but I used them to get to some of the out-of-the-way WHSs. Find the station and easy to book there. Pay on the bus using Alipay. All the buses I rode were short-distance, modern, very pleasant, and very cheap.
– Rental bicycles and electric scooters. Half need WeChat or Meityuan to pay but Hello (blue bikes and scooters) used Alipay so this was the only one I used. I found electric scooters in some cities but not in Beijing, Shanghai, or Wuhan and the largest cities. They are the ideal way to get around. Bicycles cost only 1.5¥ so are very cheap. On returning bicycles and canceling the rentals, use the lever on the side of the wheel lock (it took me a long time to figure this out). Always cancel your bike as there is a good chance it won’t be there when you return, even going into a store for 2 minutes. Not canceling (and paying) incurs a 16.5¥ penalty. The bikes are not wonderful but everywhere in China is easy, flat cycling. China may be the most bicycle country in the world (the Dutch may disagree but Chinese aren’t nearly as entitled). Virtually every street in the country has a lane used by bikes and scooters. There are no rules which I love.
– Walking. Chinese drivers are very respectful of pedestrians and cyclists. Distances though are large between NM sites. Use the metro or rent a bicycle or scooter to see many places.
Accommodation. Easily my biggest problem as hostels and hotels for foreigners are very limited. The rules are very strict and actively enforced so there is no point arguing. There are few hostels on Hostelworld. Use yha.com, booking.com, or trip.com to find hostels. Chinese use Qunar.com which isn’t available to foreigners.
Without good Mandarin, it is impossible to find out what the hotel’s foreigner rules are. Few hotel staff speak English so phoning to check doesn’t work and they don’t reply to emails. It can be a nightmare.
The only hotels that accept foreigners are 4-star and above, although I occasionally found cheaper ones. I used Booking.com and trip.com which usually give no reference to foreigner acceptance. It can take a lot of time to find one and few are cheap (less than UD$50/night). I eventually just went to the nearest Holiday Inn Express with relatively good prices. However, in Dengfeng, I was refused at a Holiday Inn and had to go to a 5-star hotel (US$80).
Museums. Possibly the best in the world. In modern buildings with great architecture, and well-curated displays. Many are free or at a very reduced rate if over 60. They are all unusually busy – with free museums, Chinese use them heavily.
Many World Heritage Sites are free if over 60, but can be very expensive otherwise.
Security. At the entrance to anything public but fast and easy.
It would be advisable to not criticize the government or Xi Jinping, especially in print. China has replicated 1984 – Big Brother is everywhere with AI facial recognition.
Food. I am not a “foodie” and have great difficulty with Chinese food (which is entirely different than “Western” Chinese food). It is spiced differently and often piquant. Meat has a lot of bones. Anna doesn’t even like it. The sausages are good. I made my own breakfast and ate a lot of meals at Western fast-food restaurants. If you like pickles in your hamburger, there is no word for pickle in Mandarin – ask for extra cucumber!
The Supermarkets are “food deserts” – a great choice of vegetables and fruit but otherwise not like ours, 90 kinds of soy sauce, 50 of cooking oil, thousands of snacks, no cereal, and one kind of coffee.