中国

China is great! You should really go. And people are friendly, but only if you get to now them. Sharing a compartment in a train is mostly enough. But being addressed on the street in English some people would just turn away, others just saying ‘no!’, either in English or Chinese. And even if you get an answer don’t just believe what you hear! A lot of people just tell you anything, I dunno why, maybe just to get rid of you or to even to cheat you. I wanna share two stories (there is loads of those):

When we wanted to go from Beijing to Badaling we totally knew where and when to go with which bus (thanks to my great sister!). But when we were about to enter the bus at 10:05 am people (officials!) told us there would be no buses this day because of problems on the road, we should come back next day before 10 am or take a guided tour. So we went back the next day at 9:30 am, but people told us the last bus left at 9 am. Knowing we got tricked we went further and found another bus (same number) which was going!!

In Kunming Becky and me planned to go to Bamboo monastery and researched how to go. When we entered the bus C63 the driver told us he wouldn’t go that place. At the station a very helpful woman told us how to go, taking a totally other bus. Instead we rechecked online and actually our information had been right. So we entered the next bus C63. The driver was really nice and even asked us later where we go. But again he insisted he is also not going, we should take bus C61 and therefore get off the next station. Bus C61 really went to the monastery, but arriving there we saw that also C63 is going… But apparently two buses in a row didn’t? And then this woman really seemed nice and knowing what shes talking about, but gave us totally wrong information…

Still, China is amazing! The landscape is, people are, its the whole country. And so various! What I find impressive is the simplicity of the living style of most people, even in the big cities. But at the same time everybody is using energy saving bulbs. And then there is all that electric bikes, its obviously working, why not in Europe? One can easily spend a whole life to explore China and I will definitely come back, then leaving through Tibet and Nepal to India (: