We’re now traveling through Southern China having taken a train out of Vietnam on 30-April. As of 06-May, we’re in the town of Yangshuo, a very scenic location about an hour south of Guilin, where we’ll be staying for the next 10-14 days. Within China, 10% of all Web sites are censored/blocked, unfortunately, our www.pfeffer.vox.com is one of these ‘taboo’ sites, so for now we’re unable to post or even view our blog. Rather than transfer everything to a new blog site that is accessible within China (and there are quite a few), we’ll wait until we’re in Hong Kong the end of May and post our accumulated entries then. Perhaps as we move through other Chinese provinces, the situation will change, but for now, there’s not much we can do.
Trust that we’re both safe and sound and that we’ll be traveling through China until 19-July – our itinerary will be Guilin, Yangshuo, Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Xiamen, Shanghai, Xian, and Beijing (with other stops along this main route). We’d really like to get to Lhasa on the new railroad, but this is not possible right now – maybe in another month when we’re in Xian things will open up. We will be in Beijing the beginning of July to hook up with our Trans-Mongolian train across Russia (leaving 19-July).
Travel in China takes a little patience – modern and clean, very few people speak English, most everything is signed in Chinese, and there are crowds of people wherever you turn, yet very few westerners. Despite these challenges, the people are friendly and eager to understand and help you, while we’ve learned the basic phrases to get by and communicate. Still, simple things, like figuring out a cheap calling card for our cell phone, took up the better part of two days, and Marge is still trying to get a prescription filled at a Chinese pharmacy.
All in all, the next few months will test our independent travel stamina and ingenuity, as we navigate our way across the huge expanse of China, employing local buses and trains on our way north. Stay tuned for more updates as we try to keep everyone up to date on our current status.
