As soon as we had crossed into China, we managed to hop on a bus to Hohot, the capital of the Chinese province “Inner Mongolia”. Short-distance buses in China, i.e. anything up to a 10 hour ride, leave often hourly of half-hourly and you can get a ticket almost instantly. You just show up the counter, battle with the crowd to get to the window Continue reading Baby steps from Inner Mongolia to the border of Kazakhstan
Our trip with the ferry from Kobe to the Chinese port of Tianjin turned out to be a very relaxing ride and the 50 hours in the boat didn’t even feel that long. It was nothing like the ferry we took from Qiandao, China, to Incheon, South Korea three years ago where we got stuck with a lot of drunken Chinese businessmen who were very keen to do business with us or were trying to get us pissed. The ferry was only half full and it was really quiet at night. We spent the two days reading, listing to music or watching the Sopranos (we hadn’t seen the show before and are totally addicted to it now – ‘what can you do!?’…). When not relaxing we walked up and down the ship or in circles on deck to stretch our legs. On the first day we travelled closely along the Japanese coast which was pretty stunning. By the afternoon of the second day all there was to see was the wide open sea and nothing else until we arrived a the industrial port of Tianjin where we met heaps of oil tankers and a very hazy sky awaited us. Yes, you’ll be shocked to learn it’s true the pollution in big Chinese cities is pretty bad. Continue reading Kobe to Ulaanbaatar – 10 days, 3 cultures and hours travelling (or waiting)