Wenn man an China aus der Sicht eines Touristen denk schießen einem sofort Begriffe wie „Die große Mauer“, „Shanghai“ oder „Die Terrakottaarmee“ in den Kopf.
Natürlich stehen auch all diese „must have seen“ Orte auf meiner Reiseliste aber im Dezember stand mir eher der Sinn nach etwas Natur. Zufällig war ich zu diesem Zeitpunkt gerade in dem Büro in Zhuhai und hatte somit einfacheren Zugang zu Reisezielen in und um die Region Guangdong. Meine Ziele für die kommenden 4 Tage hießen Guilin, Yangshuo und Longji.
Mit einem berüchtigten Schlafbus, ging es innerhalb von 11Stunden von Zhuhai nach Guilin in die Provinz Guangxi. Nach der außergewöhnlichen Anreise war ich froh meinen Tagestrip nach Yangshuo für den kommenden Tag direkt im Hostel buchen zu können.
Mit dem Bus ging es dann direkt vom Hostel ins 2 Stunden entfernte Yangshuo. Die Landschaft war schon auf der Hinfahrt der absolute Wahnsinn! Berge wohin das Auge reicht! Zudem hatte ich auch noch irrsinniges Glück mit dem Wetter- strahlender Sonnenschein, ein blauer Himmel und Temperaturen um die 15-20Grad, und das im Dezember!
Der Bus ließ uns in einem kleinen Dorf raus, von wo wir unsere Reise mit dem Bambusfloß über den berühmten Li-Fluss fortsetzten. In aller Ruhe und Gelassenheit über den Fluss zu fahren und die umliegende Natur zu bewundern wurde umgehend zu einem meiner China-Highlights!
Auch das Städtchen Yangshuo, welches ich im Anschluss mit dem Rad erkundet habe hat mir ausgesprochen gut gefallen. Umringt von eindrucksvollen Bergen und direkt am Fluss, ist Yangshuo wirklich der ideale Ort für jeden Reisenden und Hobbyfotografen- hier gelingt definitiv jedem ein Schnappschuss!
Nachdem ich am Abend wieder nach Guilin zurückgekehrt war, habe ich meine Reise am darauffolgenden Tag zu den Reisterrassen nach Longji fortgesetzt. Die Terrassen befinden sich ca. 23 km von der Stadt Longsheng und 3 Autostunden von Guilin entfernt. Auch diese Tour konnte ich problemlos und sehr bequem über das Hostel buchen. Nach einer Autofahrt durchs Gebirge und auf Serpentinenstraßen erreicht man schließlich ein Tal von welchem man entweder mit der Gondel auf den höchsten Punkt zu einer Aussichtsplattform fahren kann, oder man erklimmt die Terrassen zu Fuß.
Die Aussicht ist in jedem Fall atemberaubend! Obwohl die Becken nicht wie im Sommer bewässert waren, war der Blick ins Tal mit den umliegenden Terrassen auch im Winter ausgesprochen eindrucksvoll!
Für jeden, der die „natürliche“ Seite Chinas erleben möchte und auf der Suche nach dem Ein oder Anderen Fotomotiv ist, wird in Yangshuo und Longji auf jeden Fall fündig!
Ich kann eine Reise nach Guilin, Yangshuo und Longji nur auf´s Wärmste empfehlen!
It was one of my last weekends here in China and my host-family planned to go to Emei Shan – Unesco world heritage since 1996 – to show me the beautiful view on top of the mountain.The journey began on Saturday morning at 6 o´clock. We took the bus to get to the city right next to the mountain. Quite early but mei you shijian (no time) because we only had one day to climb up.
Three hours later we arrived at our hotel room which I shared with my Chinese family. Kind of an adventure I thought, but fun nevertheless…
While having a walk we got to a beautiful forest area with hidden temples. One of them – quite interesting and something have never seen before – was run only by female Buddhists.
It took me a while to adjust to the walking speed of my family because my host-mum loved taking photos – of everything and everybody all the time!
So at the end of the day we were exhausted, but still had enough time and energy for delicious Chinese BBQ. It only cost us 16 RMB for about 30 various sticks. One of the things which makes me love China. Well fed and satisfied we fell asleep early as we had to get up again at 6 am the next morning to conquer Emei Mountain.
Because my family isn´t that sporty we decided to take the comfy way: Bus and cable car up to the top! It took us 3 hours anyway…
But even during those few steps we had to take, we saw some cheeky monkeys taking food from tourists, beautiful valleys and a lot of other Chinese people who all tried to catch a photo with me… No worries, I got used to that!
Finally we arrived at the golden summit and got to see the bluest sky – including a sea of clouds – you can only imagine, leaving the Chinese pollution and fog right behind us!
It was so cold that we only could take pictures with gloves on to catch every moment of that perfect scenery. For example, the golden Buddha surrounded by dozen of monks praying for healthiness, money and a long life.
We walked around and took pictures as not to forget a single corner of that beautiful area. And of course we had around 20 kg of snacks, soups, noodles and sweets to kill for lunch – which we enjoyed under the sun we hadn’t seen back in Chengdu for the last few days.
But unfortunately we only had two hours up on the mountain before taking the same way back home!
The next time I definitely would conquer that mountain by climbing…
Bye Bye Emei!
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With May Fourth Square, Marina City, Qingdao’s Old Town, Ba Da Guan district and the shopping streets Part one of places to show your friends during their visit in Qingdao was all about Qingdao’s Culture and nice places where you can spend all your money on beautiful things. But Qingdao has a lot more to offer. With its location surrounded by the sea and mountains you and your friends should definitely escape the city for some days to discover the nice area around Qingdao.
Fushan
Qingdao is located right on the base of Fushan. A mountain range with an area of 7.5 square kilometres. The main and highest peak is in Qingdao with a height of 384 meters. There are no roads but instead natural trails, meadows and pine trees that guarantee a nice hiking tour to the top. Once you made your way up you will be rewarded with a great view over the city of Qingdao, the sea and the beautiful costal area. Best time to go is definitely in the evening to watch the sunset on top of the city. There is even a little shack shop run by a friendly elderly couple selling snickers and beer… amazing.
Laoshan
Bigger, further away and with lots of culture to offer, you should take a whole day to experience Laoshan. It is the highest costal mountain in China with the peak reaching 1132 meters. But Laoshan has more to offer than just a long hiking tour with a marvellous natural scenery of seas and waterfalls. It is said to be one of the birth places of Taoism and thus a mountain of high significance for the Chinese culture. With lots of Taoist temples and nunneries Mount Laoshan offers more cultural experiences than one could possibly place on one day.
Qingdao’s beaches
After hiking up two mountains it might be nice to grant your visitors a little rest. Best way to relax in Qingdao is definitely a day at the beach. Since Qingdao has 6 bathing beaches the decision which one to show is not that easy. One of my favourite beaches is Shilaoren beach. It is the biggest beach and outside of the city center. The second one that should not be missed is bathing beach number 2 next to the Ba Da Guan District.
Best way to discover both, spend the day at Shi Lao Ren beach and watch the sunset near bathing beach No 1.
Coffee Street
In case that is a little too much nature for your friends, take them out for a drink to Minjiang Er Lu – Coffee Street.
With comfy kitsch coffee places next to Italian restaurants and wine bars the coffee street will be the perfect place for your friends to relax after hiking up two hills and discovering Qingdao’s seaside.
Would you like to explore Qingdao as good as Sandra did? Then apply now for an internship in this beautiful city!
Taiwan (former: Formosa) is a beautiful island near the coast of China Mainland. The P.R. China is claiming it as another province of China, the Taiwanese people pro-claimed the Republic of China on this island. These tensions are of world-political meaning, but besides these political disputes, Taiwan offers beautiful nature, friendly people and great beaches and National Parks to spend a wonderful holiday.
Especially if you want to make holidays somewhere “outside” China, but still want to feel like in China, Taiwan is a great place. The flights that we booked from Chengdu were cheap (2000 RMB per person, return!) and it only took us a one-day trip via Hong Kong, and Taipeh to get to the beautiful National Forest Park of Kenting in the South of Taiwan. Beginning of September is said to be the typhoon season, so when we arrived we got into a heavy rain and flooded streets. But after one day, everything went back to normal, the sun was hot and tropical and after the sea calmed down, we could see the true beauty of bright wide sand beaches and a beautiful turquoise sea.
As we took our tent along, we also finally found a spot to stay for a night and enjoy a little camping adventure. Very lucky, we found a beach facing the South West, so we didn’t only watch a beautiful sunset but it also helped to not fry us in the tent too early in the morning after the sun came up.
Camping at the beach was a great experience but after a while, we were ready return to civilization and spent the last days of our holidays in Kenting Town, which is something like a surfer town with a daily big night market and plenty of little shops.
As Taiwan is famous for its little snacks and delicacies we tried (besides the healthy fruit smoothies) every day something new, such as deep-fried oreos and snickers, chicken wraps, Japanese snacks, and banana pancakes covered in chocolate sauce. Taiwan is definitely not the place for caring of the girly line if you like food!
As we also wanted to explore a little bit of the surrounding, we one day hiked into the National Forest Park and discovered Limestone caves, big wide forests, savannas and got a great view of the southern coastline of Taiwan. On our way, we also saw plenty of animals: from beautiful butterflies to poisonous looking spiders and snakes to huge flying ants. The caves were supposed to host monkeys as well, but fortunately we didn’t meet them. It was a peaceful and adventurous day but as the weather was still very hot, we were happy to take a rest at the end of the day.
My first experience in Taiwan was a great success and I left being sad and happy at the same time: it is easy to get around with Mandarin Chinese, the air is clean and people are very friendly and positively curious about foreigners. But the best is, that for travelling to Taiwan, Europeans and Americans don’t need a visa (upto 90 days stay) so it won’t be for sure the last time that we visited this beautiful island.
Travelling in and around China can be so easy: Just ask our InternChina-team for advise! If you have to leave China after 90 days for your visa for example, you can just go to Taiwan for the weekend. It is cheap and easy to get around there!
Apply now for your internship in China and become part of the InternChina community!
DAY 1
The Chengdu community of InternChina visited one of four sacred Buddhist mountains in China, Emei Shan. Moreover, it is an UNESCO World Heritage Site. Personally, I totally agree with the UNESCO.
Since the national park is pretty huge, we decided to make a two day trip to the area. We started early in the morning in Chengdu and took a bus to Emei Shan City. When we arrived we had early lunch to energize us before the hiking. Straight from the beginning the hiking was quite challenging. But we had had the goal of reaching the mountaintop, so we did not lose our ambition. Firstly, we explored the main valley of the mountain range.
The Nature of Emei Shan natural park is breathtakingly beautiful. This is a place of pure nature! (I felt a bit like walking through Jurassic Park)
After climbing a lot of steps up and down we met the Emei Shan’s famous wild monkeys. Thea’s meeting with the monkeys was a bit more intimate than ours. Therefore, Thea generously donated a bottle of her water to please the monkeys. We were really tired after a long day of hiking and climbing, so we looked for a nice hostel. Some local helped us find a decent place in the middle of the mountains. Since we were obviously really hungry we were happy about the great local food served at the hostel. Everybody enjoyed a satisfying dinner.
DAY 2
We all knew the earlier we get to the mountaintop the better. Hence, we woke up at 4.30. To win some time we took a bus to come closer to the mountaintop. This two hour ride was an adventure for itself. The driver seemed to be quite ambitious and did not hesitate to use every chance to speed up. After making progress, we conveniently had to climb the last stage to the mountaintop – another 2 miles of steps up atan altitude of over two thousand meters. This was a massive challenge for everybody of us because none of us actually never been on a mountaintop like this before. We started questioning ourselves if it was a good decision to do this trip but we were so close to our goal.
And when we reached the mountaintop we immediately recognized that every step was absolutely worth climbing!
3099 meters.
We were surrounded by clouds. This was an amazing experience. There is a huge Buddhist statue on the mountaintop which is really impressive as well as beautiful. Considering the fact that this is a mountaintop the area is surprisingly spacious. Next to the statue and temple there are numerous viewpoints. It truly is amazing! Peering down from our high perch made all the other mountains seem so small, similar to how you look to the clouds from a plane. At some point we were able to take a look down into the depth. This makes you feel quite humble. Emei Shan is truly a majestic place.
For some Chinese people we seemed to as much an attraction as the mountain itself. A lot of people asked us to take a picture with them. This procedure nearly lasted 15 minutes. But we did not mind at all and were happy to do it. In total we spend two hours on the mountain. Then we split up. Some of us wanted to have the adventure of using the cable car in this height, some of us climbed the stairs back down.
All in all, this trip had been really great and definitely the best nature trip I’ve done so far. I’m curious what will be my next adventures in China but it will be really hard for any sight to compete with Emei Shan.
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IC Trip to Dan Xia Park
Written by Jack Everett
My first official trip with InternChina was to the Danxiashan Geopark in Guangdong province. Here we planned to explore the Chinese countryside and also see the crudely named “Penis Mountain” and “Pussy Cave”! (This definitely allowed us to unleash our immature side!) The trip got off to a bad start when our bus ride was delayed for 3 hours. However, nothing makes you feel better after sitting on a hot bus than Chinese water rafting! The water rafting was incredible! With 5 meter drops in tiny dinghy’s it proved an incredibly dangerous but exciting activity. It was definitely a good way to start the trip!
Following my first experience of crazy Chinese water rafting, we travelled to Shaoguan where we could relax and spend the night. We treated ourselves to some local Cantonese food, had a few beers and chilled out before our tiresome day of mountain climbing in the morning!
After a short bus ride on the Sunday morning we arrived at Danxiashan Geopark. The dense forests, small lakes and winding rivers provided some beautiful scenery. It was great to explore the Chinese country side despite the intense humidity!
It wasn’t long after we started walking that we were confronted with the infamous “Penis Mountain”. The phallic shaped rock proved to be a strangely popular tourist destination… I found it so strange (and quite disturbing) that families travelled together to see the mountain! Nonetheless, it was a great place to mess around and take some hilarious photos!
After climbing what felt like a never ending amount of steps, we finally made it to one of the mountain peaks. The steep climb and raging heat had completely exhausted us, but the view from the top of the mountain was totally worth it!
The climb down from the mountain was treacherous but it offered some incredible views of the surrounding areas! Waiting for us at the foot of the mountain was “Pussy Cave”. In our tired and delirious state the cave seemed hilarious! We spent a worrying amount of time taking some more ridiculous photos and laughing at the strange tourist site.
Many hours later, we finally completed the physically grueling and shattering journey up the mountain! Although we were completely exhausted we were so proud that we’d made it! The trip had definitely been worth it. InternChina has conquered the mountain.
Want to experience China’s breath taking natural beautz? Why not come to China! Apply now or send us an email for more information.
It was really a great trip and the cities are beautiful.Each of these two cities has something special and unique.
I loved the nature around Hong-Kong. I never saw such awesome landscapes and I was really surprised about that, because all I have heard about Hong-Kong before was that it is a high-tech city without any taxes for electronic stuff and with loads of huge skyscrapers and that the nightlife should be even better than in Shanghai… But nobody ever was talking about the nature. The feeling in Hong-Kong was really like having holidays and I´m really happy I made this trip. To be honest the only reason why I could do this trip was because I´m doing my internship in Qingdao! Qingdao is so cheap, if I think of the living costs and everything else. I couldn´t afford these experiences if I had lived in Beijing or Shanghai, because everything there is much more expensive.