Given the nature of overlanding and how insanely big China is, we have decided to break our blog posts down thematically rather than chronologically for ease of writing (and reading!) Today's post is about some of the BIG tourist attractions that we managed to see on this trip to China (think the kinds of things that make the top ten in Lonely Planet).
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In the initial planning stages of our round the world adventure Joe turned to me one evening and said 'do you think we should try and go to a 'stan' country? I was thinking Uzbekistan.' After some research and a whole load of googling, we found a trip run by a company called Dragoman who offer journeys across Central Asia on a purpose built truck with options to wild camp as well as stay in many of the historical cities of the Silk Road. The mix of camping (which we haven't done at all so far), yurt home stays and opportunities for hiking and horse riding as well as museum stops and tours seemed like a great way to explore some less well visited countries which can be difficult to get to on your own, especially with some legally requiring a native language speaking guide. Our epic journey will take us across northern China, starting in Beijing, before we head to Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan and Georgia (we decided one 'stan' just wasn't enough!). After waiting 8 months to get started on this final 3 month leg, we met the Dragoman crew, our fellow passengers and our truck Layla in China's capital. The trip kicked off with a few days exploring Beijing's rich history (mainly by the metro!) with stops at the Forbidden City and the Temple of Heaven to name but a few, before we headed out on China's super slick highways to start our 44 day long drive across the vast country.
I would advise that nobody should try to fly all the way across the world and back in a week unless they REALLY REALLY have to. Getting of the plane at Heathrow and immediately going into central London on a packed commuter tube train with jet lag killed us. But, long story short, we got our Chinese visas! It was so nice to go home, see the family, hug the dogs and spend some time drinking tap water and relaxing. It turned out to be a great recharge of the travelling batteries and the perfect opportunity to offload some useless space wasting items we hadn’t even used, as well as the chance the stock up on some essentials like paracetamol and toothpaste – we just wish we could have done it under less stressed, last minute circumstances! You live and learn…
Despite numerous phone calls, emails and reassurances to the contrary, it was in the Cambodian capital’s Chinese Embassy that we were finally told that there was no way to secure a visa for longer than 30 days on the road. We’d spent ages getting photocopies, print outs, passport pictures and forms only to be immediately turned away from the counter and we felt both deflated and panicked as we realised the only option was fly back to the UK. This presented 3 main challenges: 1) timing (when could we reasonably make the trip home? We were going to have to cut out a part of our itinerary and which was really sad after all the planning and preparation we’d done), 2) the cost (the price of return flights half way across the world was eye watering, not to mention all the flights and prepaid accommodation that would be lost), and 3) actually getting a visa (the official way to get a visa from the embassy is through an agency that required appointments which were fully booked up months in advance). There was also an added complication that Joe’s parents had a fully booked holiday for us all through Vietnam in just over a week so we HAD to be in Ho Chi Minh city for the start of that. All this meant we really only had two options: fly home now and miss out the last week of Cambodia or fly after Vietnam and miss out Hong Kong. Many hours of googling flights, phone calls home to parents and agencies in London (not easy given the time difference!) and lots of considering which bits of the trip we were willing to sacrifice later, we booked absolutely last minute flights home from Phnom Penh via Kuala Lumpur, returning to South East Asia after 8 days but this time to Ho Chi Minh. We found an expensive agency who could get our visas through an express service without an appointment in advance, giving us time to get everything sorted and still be back in SE Asia for the start of the family Vietnam trip. Phew!
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Hi! We're Alice and Joseph, currently on a year long RTW trip :) Archives
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