Tuesday, March 21, 2006
Chinese no man's land
"When you return to China madam, you will need to get a new visa."
Thanks, but no thanks. I think us and the chinese need some time apart. Don't get me wrong, we don't regret going, as that is what travelling is all about, but it is a challenging country if you are a backpacker. We did envy the guided tour groups we saw though. They seemed to be having a great time and because they were a group, the gawping was divided equally among them!
Anyway, back to this visa. We officially left China on Sunday and officially entered Hong Kong on Monday. So we have called the transition period 'Chinese no man's land!'
The best way to get from Shanghai to Hong Kong is to fly - 2.5 hours of luxury. But we are not ones to listen to advice, let alone take it. We chose the train, the 27 hour train. Our previous 2 train journeys were only quick ones (11 and 17 hours respectively!) We had had to endure sharing our 4-berth cabin on these occasions with chinese businessmen and a brummie who lives in Croydon. The habits of this motley crew consisted of staring, sucking teeth,smoking and snoring, all of which led me to have what Rhod called my 'train face', one of utter disgust and loathing.
However, on this occasion we found ourselves companion-free! No train face for Anna! The journey went surprisingly quickly. We managed to pass the time chatting to other travellers we met and giving impromptu english lessons to the chinese train guard whenever he passed. It said alot about the english text book he was learning from. He asked if we could correct his pronunciation as he read aloud a passage about a vicar being surprised about a church bell ringing after years of being broken! That's really going to help him in his career on the trains!
So we are now enjoying fitting in to Hong Kong lifestyle. We are less of a novelty here.
# posted by Rhodri @ 2:26 pm 
