China, Guangzhou: Stressful Times

Our first major mistake in China was booking a room in GDH Inn in Guangzhou. It had nothing to do with the fact that we arrived in Guangzhou right in the middle of the excessively busy Trade Fair. However, the Trade Fair being in town meant that there were hardly any rooms available and, to top off the fact that we really didn't like GDH Inn, the room we had booked cost us ₤20 a night, which is around $37. You'll be able to read why we didn't like GDH Inn a bit further down the page.

Upon arriving at Guangzhou Bus Station at 6am, from our overnight trip from Yangshuo, we headed out to find the nearest metro station. After using the Chinese dictionary section of our Lonely Planet, we managed to find out from an old man where the closest station was located.

The hotel had blocked access to our room and they also asked us to pay additional money before they would give us a new keycard

The metro in Guangzhou seemed to be brand new and was really great for travelling around the large city with 3.3 million people. The entire system was very modern and extremely clean and the trains were set up as one continuous carriage, whereby you could see all the way down the length of the train. As a result, the air conditioning flowed quite nicely throughout the train and it was quite cool during the journeys we took. It was not only a pleasure to ride on Guangzhou's metro, but it was very cheap too! A typical ticket to get from point A to point B only cost around 5 RMB (33p or 50 cents).

Once we had bought our metro tickets, found the correct platform and boarded the train, we were whisked off to our destination to check into our room at the hotel. Out on the street, we thought we were doing well because we had supposedly figured out where our hotel was located. Trying to use what little Chinese we knew (VERY little at this point in our trip), we deducted that our hotel was located on Zhongshan "Wu Lu", which basically translates as Zhongshan "Road No. 5".

The reason we thought the hotel was located on this road was because their address was on Zhongshan (W.) Lu. Using our Lonely Planet Chinese dictionary again, we looked at the number table and noticed, when reviewing the numbers 1 to 10, that the number 5 was pronounced "Wu" in Chinese. On our Lonely Planet map, which incidentally was out of date because of Guangzhou's rapid growth with a couple of new metro lines, we saw the road Zhongshan Wu Lu. Wouldn't anyone have thought that the "(W.)" in GDH Inn's address was an abbreviation for "Wu"? We did.

When we exited the metro station, we were very eager to find the hotel because the skies had opened up and it was pouring down rain, a terrible thunderstorm had begun. We sought refuge for half an hour under a large awning at the entrance to an office building, where many women were out early, practicing their Tai Chi movements. By the way, rain and a cloudy sky was a common theme in our three days in Guangzhou, even though it was quite warm outside.

The rain was incessant and, after some time under the awning, we decided to brave the walk to find the hotel. At this point, we still thought we had the right address but we just hadn't yet found the hotel on Zhongshan Road No. 5. The rain had slowed down and we had our umbrellas out, so we didn't get too wet over the next half an hour, but we got quite tired from carrying our heavy backpacks up and down the road, looking for the hotel.

The many people that we stopped to ask for directions were not able to help us, mostly because we did not have the address written in Chinese and they weren't able to read the English address to tell us where to go. Finally, we stopped and called the hotel, which was a nightmare because the staff there also hardly spoke any English.

From the staff's poor attempts at explaining where the hotel was in English, we determined that the hotel was near the Gangding metro station. Gangding was written on the address for the hotel, but it didn't say "metro" or "station" next to it, so we assumed it may have been a district or a building name. Our Lonely Planet map did not have this new metro station, as we said above, so when we went back into the metro to look at the correct recent map, our frustration level rose quite a bit as we had been roaming the streets in Guangzhou for well over an hour now in a completely wrong district. We also had to travel all the way across town on the metro to get to the east side of the city where the hotel was located.

When we exited Gangding metro station, we were surrounded by large shopping malls and tall buildings. There was no GDH Inn in sight at that point and rush hour was underway, so it was quite busy on the paths (for the Americans reading this, that's the same as sidewalks). Our luck was still with us and we found a woman that spoke enough English to help us locate GDH Inn. As luck would have it, she actually worked in the same building!

GDH Inn was located on the 7th to 9th floors of a large office building and was not that easy to spot from the street. When we checked in, we inquired about a room with a lower rate, and this was so extremely difficult to do with staff who didn't really understand the words "yes" and "no" in English. In the end, they said that our room rate included breakfast, and that it cost 30 RMB (₤2 or $3.60) per day for 2 people. We thought that a great way to reduce the accommodation price would be to cancel breakfast, and we asked them to do this for the duration of our stay. We also had to explain to them, numerous times, that we already paid a 10% deposit for the room when we booked it on Hostelworld's website. That portion of the price should have been taken off the amount we owed them when we checked in that day.

This situation was a lot more frustrating that it is appearing in this journal entry, and it actually marked the first of many painful language difficulties that we have undergone in China. Hopefully, our positive experiences will shine through in our writing as there have been so many more positives than negatives on the trip, but when something has gone wrong, it has gone horribly wrong and has seemed to stick out more than everything else. Also, every time something has gone horribly wrong, it is because no one spoke a lick of English!

GDH Inn had many guests at the hotel who were not Chinese. In fact, the majority of the people that we saw in the hotel lobby were from other countries visiting the Trade Fair. The common language for all of the guests and the hotel staff was English, and we weren't the only ones who encountered problems there. People from Sweden, Nigeria and UAE, among others, were also frustrated. You would think that a hotel who opens its doors to international guests and that has online bookings on English-language websites would have staff who can all speak the language!

Most people reading this journal entry will not have heard of Guangzhou, so a little introduction should help. The city used to be known as Canton and the people there speak both Cantonese and Mandarin. It is the capital of the Guangdong province and is also one of China's most prosperous cities, no doubt because of the annual invitation-only Trade Fair that brings in around 150,000 business representatives from 200 countries around the world. The 10-day annual event has been running since 1957 and we just happened to choose to visit Guangzhou right in the middle of the excitement.

Guangzhou reminded us of a large American city with many flyovers and wide roads lined with tall buildings. There didn't appear to be much left of the more historic city of Guangzhou, but we did our best to see as many historical sights as possible during our time there. The original settlement of the city dates back to 214 BC and one of the key sights we visited was the Museum of the Southern Yue Royal Mausoleum, which stands on the site of Emperor Wen's tomb.

Emperor Wen was the second ruler of the Southern Yue kingdom (the area around Guangzhou at the time), which dates back to 100 BC. In the museum, we saw the actual wooden tomb where the emperor's body was found along with many others from his kingdom. Also, we saw a jade shroud, made up of 2300 pieces of jade stitched together, which covered the emperor's corpse inside his tomb.

Near the tomb, we went to Yuexiu Park, which is Guangzhou's largest and most beautiful area. The park contained several well kept gardens and a few historical points of interest, too. We visited the famous Five Rams Statue before heading to Zhenhai Tower, which was a five-storey tower built in the late 14th century and the only part of the original city wall still standing. Here, we asked a young guy on his own to take a photo of us for our journal, and he ended up spending the rest of the day with us.

Xu (funnily enough, pronounced "Sue") was a student at Xiamen University and was on holiday in Guangzhou for a few days. He was on his own seeing the sights around the city and wanted to practice speaking English with us, so he asked if he could join us for the afternoon. We obliged and this ended up helping us in the end, as he taught us how to read Chinese maps and understand the "pinyin" road signs. Pinyin is the written form of Chinese language using Roman characters, and is the easy way for foreigners to learn how to speak the language and get by in the country.

In addition to teaching us to read maps and road signs, Xu also translated for us when we wanted to buy snacks or drinks and when we needed information about the places we visited. During our time with him, we visited many old temples in Guangzhou, and Xu shared with us the differences and similarities between our two cultures; he enlightened us with information on Buddhism in China, for which we knew little about. It was a great afternoon and we were happy again to have met such a nice Chinese person.

With Xu, we visited the Guangzhou City Museum, which is housed within Zhenhai Tower in Yuexiu Park. The top floor of the museum offered a good view of the distant skyline despite the cloudy weather. The Sun Yat-Sen Memorial was next on our list and it was a short walk from the tower. After having seen all of the park sights that we were interested in, Xu led the way to our next stop, the Temple of the Six Banyan Trees.

Hua Ta ("Decorated Pagoda") was the most impressive thing about the Temple of the six Banyan Trees. Standing 54 metres tall and built in the year 1098, we were impressed at how beautifully preserved the pagoda was. The temple grounds were also very beautiful, but they held no candle to the temple grounds of our next stop, Guangxiao Temple. This second temple that we visited was one of the oldest in the city, having been founded in 4th century AD. There was a great laughing Buddha statue there that who appeared to be having the time of its life.

It took quite awhile to walk to all of the sights that we wanted to see, but we managed to cover them all before it got dark, by walking very, very quickly along the city streets. We didn’t get to go inside Mosque Dedicated to the Prophet as it was closed when we arrived, but we saw Guang Ta ("Naked Tower", or "Smooth Minaret") from outside the mosque's gate. At Chen Clan Ancestral Hall, we walked through 19 buildings that were built in traditional Lingnan style from the late 1800's. The famous Chen family had this building complex dedicated to them as their ancestral hall and the complex has many courtyards and features such as exquisite carvings, statues and paintings.

Our final sight to visit with Xu was the enormous Cathedral of the Sacred Heart, which surprised us, as we didn't expect to see a beautiful Catholic church in the middle of such a Chinese city. The church was closed, but a friendly gatekeeper allowed us to go inside to take a peek at the structure from within. After visiting the church, we bid goodbye to Xu and headed back towards GDH Inn.

With so many people coming to Guangzhou for the Trade Fair, it was quite a good town for shopping and was not short of a few large shopping malls. A couple of the more famous malls were located at a metro stop just before our hotel’s stop, and we decided to check them out and get some food. Tee Mall and Grandview Mall rivalled some of the best malls we have encountered on our trip in Asia, and we had fun trying food from a Chinese fast food place called "Kung Fu" – we weren't massively hungry but we enjoyed some steamed pork balls with a yummy sauce.

A film would have been a nice way to relax after all of the walking we did, so we attempted to see one. We found out that films in Chinese cinemas were either dubbed over in Chinese or were really dated, around 6 months old (e.g. "Night at the Museum"). This meant that we either couldn't understand what the cast were saying, or that we had seen most of the ones in English that were available. The only option we had was to see "Tristan & Isolde", which we boycotted in London because it looked so boring. We still felt we would fall asleep and didn't want to waste any money, so we boycotted it again.

Some remnant communist thinking must still exist in China, as it seemed the options for Western films, and even films from other Asian countries, were quite limited. Possibly, China would like to limit the amount of world exposure its citizens get, so many of the blockbuster films that are released in the UK and US don't have a snowball's chance in the Sahara of being shown in China. Bring on some more dodgy but cheap DVD's!

In Guangzhou, we decided to look for a laptop that we could use for the rest of the year during our travels. Since entering China, internet cafes have become scarce and we know that they will be few and far between in the US and South Pacific. With everything being "wireless" these days, some places are not backpacker-friendly for keeping in touch with people. Also, the investment would allow us to continue writing and publishing these fascinating journals that are being read word for word by every single one of our friends and family. Yeah, right!

There was a large computer shopping mall near our hotel that sold all kinds of computers and related equipment. We shopped around for a few hours, comparing the latest laptop models with the features that we needed. Many people were very keen to help us, probably more because we were foreigners (i.e. wallet with a load of cash), but what they didn't know was that (a) we are on a tight budget this year, and (b) we know a lot about computers and the approximate price we should pay for one.

Two stores, that made it to the final round of our search, ended up dropping prices and adding in several freebies to get us to make a purchase. We picked Toshiba over Samsung due to the loud and excellent quality Harmon Kardon speakers built into the laptop (to watch dodgy Chinese DVD's). The difficult bit came next, paying for the thing. The stores in the computer mall did not take credit cards – cash only. The Chinese don't really use credit cards, and this unforeseen obstacle was unpleasant at the time, but saved us in the end (read further down to understand why).

We spent the next few hours trying to withdraw enough money from ATM machines and, during the course of events, Kyle's bank card was blocked due to the number of times it was being used in different machines; Dan's card was blocked due to the daily withdrawal limit amount. We called Kyle's bank to unblock his card and we finally found a different bank's ATM that Dan could use to take out the remaining money. By the way, the store salesman was so eager for our sale that he took us to banks with international ATM machines. We never would have found the right ATMs in time before the store closed for the day.

With money in hand, we walked back to the store, ready to make our purchase. When the salesman brought out the laptop, we inspected it and, although the laptop was brand new and in excellent condition, all of the manuals were in Chinese. Normally, when either of us has bought any electrical item, the manual always included English and other languages such as Chinese. Apparently, this was not the case in China, and it was strike number one against the purchase.

Strike number two against the laptop was the power cord. This was not a huge problem, but the plug was a Chinese plug and we would have had to buy adapters for the rest of our trip, or a UK power cord that we could use with the adapters we already brought with us. Strike three was the difficulty in getting the money and making the payment. There was enough negative energy around for us to feel very unconfident in the purchase and that the situation did not seem right. So, we backed out right at the last minute, when the technician was about the configure the laptop for us, when we would have had to hand over the money.

We felt really bad for the helpful salesman, who was actually only a young 21 year-old man but, at the same time, felt very relieved to have stopped the purchase in time. When you get to our Hong Kong journals, you will read about a successful laptop purchase from which we are already reaping the benefits, by saving money when avoiding internet cafes and booking hostels in China with free wireless internet.

On our final night in Guangzhou, we went to Chime-long Park. It was like a cheap copy of a Disneyland theme park and, since we arrived there in the evening, we were only able to see their international circus. We had difficulty (surprise!) getting from the subway to the circus entrance because no one spoke English. We ended up walking to the entrance to the amusement park with a couple who were on the subway train with us; they argued in Chinese with the security guard to have someone pick us up and take us to the correct circus entrance. We were finally picked up and, at the last minute, we walked in and sat down as the house lights went down.

The circus was well choreographed and staged; we enjoyed it quite a lot. The stage had a huge rainforest backdrop and many cool lasers and props were used throughout the show. There was a multi-national cast from all over the world and many animals doing completely unnatural things as well as daring stunts and trapeze artists. Check out the photos to see some insane South Americans running around a large three-wheeled steel frame – it's hard to explain but you will see in the photos!

When we returned from the circus, the hotel had blocked access to our room and they also asked us to pay additional money before they would give us a new keycard; they said we owed 10% more. The10% amount was the amount that should have been taken off for the removal of breakfast, and was also the amount that we paid beforehand as a deposit on Hostelworld. We argued for an hour and they finally gave us access to our room, and we thought the issue was resolved. The next morning when we checked out, they still tried to take the extra money from us, by saying that their staff made a mistake and that we should pay extra, despite them making a mistake. More heated arguments ensued and we finally left the hotel without paying the extra money, and we were glad to be gone from there.

After leaving the hotel, we went to the bus station where we would be catching a bus to Hong Kong later that day. There were two big hotels near the station and we tried our luck to see if they would keep our bags for us until we caught our bus. The first hotel, China Hotel, would not budge on their policy whereby "only guests are allowed to leave their luggage". The second hotel, DongFang Hotel, had the same policy, but the concierge there sneakily accepted 10 RMB (66p or $1) per bag to store them for us for a few hours.

We left the hotel to visit Shamian Island, which is a small island located in the middle of the Pearl River. The island has many colonial buildings, cafes and charity souvenir shops, and we had a good time buying some souvenirs there, knowing the money was going towards underprivileged children's charities. We had a scare when we left, however; one of our small backpacks was left inside one of the shops and we didn't realise it until we had left the island. We panicked and rushed back to the shop, where the shopkeeper was waiting for our return. Whew!

Being pressed for time, we decided to get a taxi back to the DongFang Hotel to collect our bags, and we made it just in time to grab some food to take onto the bus with us. We arrived at the bus station at the same time the bus arrived, and quickly boarded. Despite having to kick someone out of one of our seats, the bus journey was really nice and we were VERY excited to head to Hong Kong, an eagerly awaited destination for both of us!