Day 44 - Transfer in Xiamen

When I woke up in the morning and stepped out on deck, I could see China and all the big container ships departing or heading towards Xiamen port.

People were also out on deck enjoying the sunshine, dancing and chatting. Since there were a few tourist groups on board it was busier than on the way to Taiwan.

Using my knowledge of the Chinese queuing system, I manage to be one of the first off the boat and at the immigration desk. The immigration procedures were very fast and smooth and put the UK immigration to shame, where it always takes ages despite me having a EU passport.

The first task in Xiamen was to head to the train station and get my ticket for Nanning sorted or find a place to stay in case the train was full. I got my train ticket without problems for later in the afternoon and was set for a 28h journey to Nanning.

Since I had a few hours to spare, I headed to a nearby park and went for coffee after.

Once I boarded the train to Nanning, I had to find out that none of the plugs in the train worked so it meant 28h without power for my gadgets which were in need of a charge after being used during the day.
This put a damper on this journey as it meant not being able to do sort through my photos and try to make space on my drive. It also promised to be a very long and boring journey but I still had hope to find a working plug somewhere.

Day 36 - Xiamen and Gulangyu Island

After missing the ferry yesterday, my first task was to go to the ferry port and sort my ticket out. Since my hostel was quite far out, I had o take the bus and then walk for a bit before I got there.
Once there I managed to find the counter to get the ticket from and sort out my journey for Thursday the 12th at 18:00, looks like their website is quite a bit out in terms of the time.

Once this was sorted, I walked to the ferry pier for Gulangyu Island, this is a small island that is a must see when in Xiamen. You can buy a cheap return ticket or opt for an all inclusive ticket to see all the parks and museums on the island. I did opt for the later as it seemed good value.

Gulangyu reminded me immediately of Shamian Island in Guangzhou with it's colonial style buildings, cafes and overall atmosphere.
It is well worth a visit and you can see some nice colonial style buildings but also some buildings looking like a ship, including a mast or one looking like the captains deck on a container ship.

It's certainly nice to just wander around and it feels quite different from Xiamen, there are also no cars or scooters on the island so it's very quiet. The trees provide enough shade and if you go around the island you can find some nice beaches for a swim.

The all inclusive ticket gives you entry to two of the main gardens, the piano museum, Sunlight Rock, the aviary and the organ museum. I would say it's probably not really worth it after having seen some of the places, while it will save you money if you want to visit everything, the most interesting parts are Sunlight Rock and Hayue garden with the statue of Zheng Chenggong and if you only go to see these two it will be cheaper not to get the all inclusive ticket.

After walking around the island and seeing the gardens it was already quite late in the day and on the ferry back I got to see the sunset. Overall it was a very enjoyable day on the island.

You might have noticed that I have posted less pictures on this post, I will try to limit my pictures between 10 and 15. I felt like I got a bit sloppy with my editing and selecting of pictures and ended up posting way too man for each day.
This should hopefully mean you get to see a better selecting of pictures and I try to get my Flickr 'Best of' set up to date so you can see more pictures there.

Day 35 - A Day of Travel

An old Chinese proverb says that 'When the crescent moon rises you should travel far distances without reaching your intended destination'. Ok, maybe it does not say this as I just made it up but it could say this and would fit well for today. ;)

To get to Xiamen was a bit of a mission and I had to take three trains, I guess if I would have planned it better I would have stayed in Suzhou first and after in Hangzhou as there are more direct trains to Xiamen from Hangzhou. But anyway, after taking the train from Suzhou to Shanghai Hongqiao, then onwards to Hangzhou East and from there to Xiamen, I arrived here at 18:50.

Now, while this was close it should still give me plenty of time to get the 20:00 ferry, especially after waiting only 10 minutes for a taxi and making it to the port by 19:25.
This looked all very promising and I was certain to make it until I got into the departure lounge.

Well, it was deserted and nobody was there. After finding someone hidden behind a desk I tried to find out what the situation was. After a bit of a struggle, she understood that I was after the Taiwan ferry but said that contrary to the website, it leaves at 19:00 so there is no ferry till Thursday.

This means I now have two days to see Xiamen so I did what I always do when plans change unexpectedly, I was looking for a bar with wifi to get a beer (earlier in the day it would have been a coffee). After consulting my Fonepad I found a few bars in a park nearby according to the maps app I use so I was headed in this direction.

Once I found a bar and I had a cold pint in front of me, I began looking for a place to stay and for things to do in Xiamen. The nice thing was that they also had a really good band playing so this made it even nicer.
If I learned one thing during my travels is that no matter what happens, always stay cool and get a coffee or beer as things will look much better with one in front of you and it will give you time to sort things out.

After enjoying the drink and live music, I set out to the hostel, it was quite far out but was really cheap and got good reviews. Unfortunately the taxi driver did not know how to get there and just left me out in a small side street to try and find the hostel.
After wandering for a while, I ended up at a different hotel where they were nice enough to phone the hostel and have the owner pick me up.
Finding places is quite a challenge at times but it's always interesting and a challenge.

Tomorrow, I will have time to explore Xiamen and see some more of the place but so far it has a different feel to the other cities and feels a bit more like Hong Kong.

In case you started to miss my pictures out of a train window, this post should have you covered. ;)