Rice with 2 dishes for lunch (17Yuan~USD$2.5)

Took the 12.15pm bus towards Lijiang (40Yuan~USD$6) which is around 180km away.

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Lijiang is populated by many Naxi people which is a different ethnicity from Han Chinese. Naxi people has a strong matriarchal influence and Naxi women work harder too. Lijiang old town has a history of over 800 years since the Song dynasty.

Arrived Lijiang at around 4pm. Took a taxi with 3 other travelers to K2 hostel (30Yuan~USD$4)

which is located at ShuHe, around 5km away from the old town of Lijiang.

ShuHe old town

Lijiang is a bigger town than Dali. Lijiang is famous for LaPaiGu hot pot (80Yuan for 4 person), the hot pot has pork ribs and eat with vegetables.

Took a bus to Lijiang old town. Lijiang old town is a maze of cobbled street with many old buildings as well as stream flowing through the city. The city has 800 years of history since the Tang dynasty.

Symbol of Lijiang

Lijiang is more touristy than Dali and has a lot of tourist.

Women in traditional dress kniting

DongBa writing which use pictures and symbols to represent words.

There are many souvenir shops selling goods for tourist at every corner of the old town. Lijiang old town has become a touristy place.

Took bus 146 to the west bus station

and got on the 10.15am bus to Dali (100 Yuan~USD$14.5).

It’s around 380km to Dali.

View on the way

Passed by a wind farm.

Dali is located at an elevation of 1800m above sea level. There are many Bai people here and on the way passed by houses with Bai architecture.

Got to Dali at around 3pm. Dali has a new town and an old town. The bus dropped me at the new town which is called XiaGuan. Got on another bus (3Yuan~USD$0.5)

to Dali old town which is 13km away.

Stayed at Four Season Hostel (20 Yuan~USD$3)

which has a good location. The hostel is just right next to RenMin street, a popular street in Dali. There are other hostels with better reviews but those are located further west to the town.

Dali old town

Rented a bicycle for 2.5 hours (5Yuan~USD$0.7).

New part of Dali

3 pagoda

Did some biking around Dali. Towards ErHai.

Erhai Lake

Back to Dali old town

A church

Dali old town is still surrounded by an old wall

Dali is just located right at the foot of the mountain and the wind can get very strong. I tried to cycle to the 3 Pagodas but decided not to because it’s too windy.

Noodles for dinner (4Yuan~USD$0.6)

Arrived in Kunming at 5.30am in the morning after 9.5 hours of bus ride.

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Since the bus dropped me off at the new eastern bus station which is a little far away from the city, took bus 193 to the east station. Took bus 62 and walked to Camilia Hostel,

Unfortunately, it’s close for renovation.

Kunming has a population of around 6 million and is the capital of Yunnan province. During the 8th century, the Kingdom of NanZhou, a tibetan-burmese kingdom captured it and made it a secondary capital. Many Chinese migrated to this region during the Japanese occuption. There are many ethnic minorities living here and they made up a big percentage of the population in Yunnan. The weather here is quite cool as well.

Got on bus 52 and found my way to Coudland hostel

which is located close to ZhuanTang lake.

Yunnan Provincial Museum

There an exhibition about Kunming-HaiPhong, Vietnam railroad in the museum. This is one of the first railroad which link China to the outside world.

GuoQiaoMiXian (Over the bridge noodles, RNM12~USD$2)

CuiHuGongYuan (Green Park)

There are many different ethnicities in Kunming. The locals love dancing and there were different groups of crowd dancing with different tunes.

Exhibition Center

Outdoor dance again

Arrived in LaoCai at 7.30am. Stored my bag at the train station (10,000 Dong~USD$0.50), had breakfast (20,000 Dong~USD$1)

and got a minivan (35,000 Dong ~USD$1.7) to Sapa. Sapa is just around 35km away from LaoCai. Sapa is a very colorful town with a few ethnic minority groups such as the Hmong, Dai and Tay.

It’s very misty up in Sapa.

Church

BBQ piglet

Lake

Hmong people discussing about business

Terraced paddy field

Got back to LaoCai at 2pm and got on a motorbike taxi to the Vietnam-China border which is 3km away from the train station.

Leaving Vietnam

Crossed the border to the border town, HeKou.

Bought a 8pm bus ticket (137Yuan ~USD$20, 450km, 9 hours) from HeKou to Kunming.

I almost forgot that the time in China is an hour ahead of Vietnam, luckily there were still some time left when I thought about that. The sleeper bus left at 8pm sharp and was full. China has a first class infrastructure, the roads are much better than Vietnam and many other South East Asian countries. After spending the past few weeks on slow buses going on windy, narrow and bumpy roads, the bus ride to Kunming felt quite different. The bus went pretty fast. Instead of going around the mountains, there are many tunnels through the mountains and it’s a 4 lane highway so the ride was more comfortable.

Got on a boat across the Pearl river from FangChun port

Old colonial building

Kicking a bird feathered ball, a type of Chinese sports

Got on bus 208 to the east train station. Passed by the main city center to TiYuGuangChang which housed most office buildings.

Took bus 175 to BaiYunShan (White Cloud Mountain).
Flower exhibition at BaiYun park

BaiYunShan is the most famous hill in Guangzhou. The highest peak is 382 meters high. Usually I prefer to go on foot if possible but because of time constraint, got on the cable car up to the hill (25 Yuan~USD$4).

It will take more than an hour to get up the mountain on foot and 15 minutes by cable car.

The words are saying BaiYunShan welcomes you

View of Guangzhou from the mountain

The weather in Guangzhou was quite warm. Took another car back down from the mountain (20Yuan~USD$3).

Took tour bus 1 from BaiYunShan to Chen Clan Academy. Chen Clan Academy (ChenJiaCi, in Cantonese it’s pronounced as ChanKaQi, 10 Yuan~USD$1.40)

This is very well preserved architecture from the 19th century. It used to belong to a wealthy family by the name of Chen and now houses many articles including ivory sculptures and artistic statues. Again, my camera ran out of battery so I wasn’t able to take photos inside the building and had to steal photos from the web.

Chen Clan Academy

Got on the metro

to FangChun bus station and took the 5.30pm bus (22 Yuan~USD$3, 70 minutes ride) to BaiYun airport located around 30km north of the city.

Got to the airport at 6.40pm for checking in.

I booked an AirAsia flight from Guangzhou to Kuala Lumpur about a month ago (837 Yuan~USD$120). That’s why I had to rush my trip around China. My original plan was to travel overland from China all the way to South East Asia but because of Chinese New Year, I decided to fly back to Malaysia first for Chinese New Year celebration and continue the journey later. Another reason is that my current passport is quite full and I will need to get a new one.

AirAsia is a low cost airline company based in Malaysia and has flights to destinations around South East Asia, a few cities in China, South Asia and flights are rapidly expanding to destinations further away.

Wiki page about Airasia

Currently there are flights from Chengdu, Guilin, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Hangzhou, Tianjin to Kuala Lumpur for around 800 Yuan if book early.

Got on the 8.45pm flight to Kuala Lumpur.

Dinner on the aircraft (20 Yuan~USD$3).
Nasi Briyani (A kind of Indian cuisine from Malaysia)

The flight was delayed and landed at around 1.20am.

Malaysia is a multi racial and multi lingual country.

This year, Kuala Lumpur was ranked as one of the top places to visit under New York times.

Kuala Lumpur is the capital of Malaysia and has a population of around 7 millions.

Walked around the city of ChangPing.

This sign is saying don’t marry young.

Decided not to go to Dongguan since I don’t have enough time. Went to the train station

Took the 11.29am D7072 expess train (50 Yuan~USD$7.5, 30 minutes ride) to Guangzhou.

The train runs at a speed of around 200km/hour

Guangzhou is the capital of Guangdong province and is inhabited by more than 10 million people. The Chinese dialect spoken here are more difficult to understand, one reason is because Guangdong is surrounded by mountains so the language are more protected.

Many years ago during Song dynasty, Guangdong was thought to be a place inhabited by barbarians so law breaker were sent to the province.

There are now 5 metro lines in Guangzhou. Took metro 1 to FangChun station and stayed at the only one hostel in Guangzhou located at ChangDi road (50 Yuan~USD$7).

The hostel is right beside the Pearl river and is situated at a pretty good location.

There were a lot of people on the street in Guangzhou.

Beijing Lu Pedestrian Street

Was trying to visit the provincial museum but it was closed for preparation work to migrate to the new museum. Like other provincial capital, the government seems to have a lot of money and is constructing newer buildings for museum.

Around the city

Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hall

Yuexiu Park

View from the peak

Playing cards, Chinese favorite pastime

Stone Statue of the Five Rams, the symbol of Guangzhou

Met LiYuan, an old university friend for dinner at Shangxiajiu Pedestrian Street.

Camera shy

Dinner

Went to Shenzhen old museum, however there aren’t a lot of things to see there.

DongMen, a famous street for shopping and food.
This McDonald here is the first one in China.

Went to Shenzhen new museum located at Shenzhen Civic Center (ShiMinZhongXin). This is the new developed area in Shenzhen with the government office, Shenzhen library and a concert hall.

ShiMinZhongXin has some very beautiful architectures. Since the weather is warmer in Shenzhen, I only can keep one camera in my pocket. It ran out of battery so I am trying to steal some photos from other sites.

Shenzhen library is built by a famous Japanese architect. The library is equipped with an advance automation technology and is the world 2nd largest RFID-enabled library automation system.
Shenzhen library

Shenzhen concert hall is located just beside the library.

Shenzhen museum is wonderful with some great contents about the history of the city.

Took bus 373 all the way back to SheKou.

Decided to visit Dongguan since it’s on the way to Guangzhou. Went to LuoHu train station and took the 10.20pm D7046 train (40 Yuan~USD$6, 30 minutes ride). There are a lot of people at LuoHu train station because Chinese New year is just around the corner.

I just found out after arriving that the Dongguan train station is located at ChangPing and the city Dongguan is 40km away from the train station. Since it’s late at night, I just stayed overnight at a bath house.

Went to FuTian bus station which is located beside ZhuZiLin metro stop

and took the 12.20pm bus to Zhuhai (88 Yuan~USD$13).

The ticket price is relatively more expensive for a 2 hours bus ride. I guess probably because there are only 3 passengers in the bus

so they need to make up for it.

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From the map, shenzhen and zhuhai don’t seem too far away and it’s just an hour of boat ride from SheKou port to Zhuhai JinBei port.

Zhuhai is another special economic zone and has is famous for its very long coastline.

The city was ranked as one of the top places in China for retirement.

Got to GongBei bus station at around 2.30pm.

It’s Chinese new year season

It’s possible to walk from Gongbei to Macau on foot. Across the Gongbei port is Macau.

Lover’s road

Fisher Girl Statue, symbol of Zhuhai. A short story about the fisher girl

A pretty nice park

Took bus 99 which goes in a loop around the city to the NorthWest part and took bus 35 back to GongBei area.

Got a Zhuhai haircut for 25 Yuan. 4th hair cut on my trip so far.

Took the 8.30pm bus back to Shenzhen (100 Yuan~USD$14.50).

Sichuan food for lunch

Sichuan fish head

Kurt drove us around the city.
HuaQiang Bei area, a place which sells a lot of electronic goods.

Clubbing in Shenzhen.

From Changsha to Shenzhen is around 800 km away.

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Got to Shenzhen LuoHu train station at almost 9am in the morning. Took the metro

to BaiShiZhou. Shenzhen metro currently only has 2 lines but is expanding its metro system to 5 lines and further west to Shekou.
Kurt picked me up and we went for DimSum.

Crashed at Kurt’s place at NanShan area, just right beside SheKou port at the western part of Shenzhen.

Shenzhen is an interesting city. 30 years ago, the city was just a farmland with 300,000 people. But today the city is the 3rd most populous city in China with a population of around 15 millions and is one of the richest in China.

In 1979, DengXiaoPing was trying to pick a city experimenting with capitalism. Back then, Shenzhen was still a backwater town and the city was picked as a Special Economic Zone because the city is located at the edge of the country, so it won’t post a threat to communism and the city is also close to Hong Kong.

The city is a main manufacturing center in China. A lot of the OEM electronic manufacturers are based in Shenzhen. The city is also ranked as the top financial center in the world and has one of the busiest port in the world.

Met an old friend, LiNa who I have not seen for 8 years for lunch.

Took bus 1 (8 Yuan) all the way from ShiJieZhiChuang (Windows of the World) at Futian all the way to DongBuHuaQiaoCheng located at the eastern part of Shenzhen. I think the bus covered a distance of around 40 km.
View from the double decker bus

Took bus J1 back from the DongBuHuaQiaoCheng to SheKou area (9 Yuan). The route covered pretty much the whole Shenzhen from West to East. The bus J1 covered a horizontal distance of around 50km and that’s approximately how big is Shenzhen from the western part to the east. In most Chinese cities, I like taking the public bus and go around the city, especially buses which go across the city from an outer edge to another corner of the city.

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Coastal City (HaiAnCheng)

Went to a bar with live music with Kurt at the new district of SheKou. Shekou is inhabited by a relatively big expatriate community.