Chinese vs. Western Tourism - part one

back to China...

I must admit it was a bit of a shock - there are a few (ok, I admit many) things, that I don't like about China and they all hit me hard. And they hit you even harder when you're tired and find yourself AGAIN in an overcrowded hard-seat-compartment of a train. (no, I was NOT in the mood of smiling more on this pic)


But this story is not about trains (even though I could now write a lot about trains now) but about Chinese tourism...

As mentionned in my last story I continued travelling after Hong Kong with Niku, a girl from Sweden, who spent her 4 weeks holidays in China. As she was into hiking as well and I wanted to go into the great Natural Park of Zhangjiajie (surprise surprise: Unesco World Heritage Site - and again not without a reason...) I was really happy to have found a great hiking and travelling partner in her.

As it was already the case in Jiuzhaigou, Zhangjiajie is not really known among Western tourists, but even more among Chinese tourists. We arrived after a horrible train ride in the middle of the night, checked in and just went straight to bed. The next day we were preoccupied with organising our upcoming hiking days, as we not only knew thanks to some forum entries that you should really plan this trip: You don't want to pay this rather high entry-fee and end up seing only the most touristy parts. And the maps don't really help you as Chinese maps are made to look nice, but they are not at scale (can't tell you how annoying this is!!)...

Perfectly organised we finally entered the Natural park the next day - together with loaaaaads of Chinese tourists. You get the impression, that Chinese people can't travel independently, they would always take tour groups. It is not hard to recognise a Chinese tour-group: one guide in the front, with a flag, shouting into his microphone (they would never talk silently, even with a microphone they shout into it...) Reaaaally annoying I can tell you. At the most important scenic points in Zhangjiajie you are not only surrounded by one or two groups, but you would not be able to count all flags and all the different shouting noices.

However, there is one good thing about these tour groups: they are lazy!
We entered the park, went up the first mountain with the cable car and then continued walking around this mountains top before going down. In lets say 50m distance from the cable car exit, you'll have tons of people, unbearable sounds, many small stands trying to sell you shit loads of stuff. But after having passed the first overcrowded scenic point you find yourself alone with the few indeptendent travellers, who are ready to hike instead of taking the cable car back down and taking a bus to the next overcrowded scenic point. So all in all Niku and me we managed to avoid the tourgroups quite successfully, had two great hiking days and saw soooo much that all the people taking organised tours never saw!

Of course we couldn't avoid the tour groups completely as there is a reason why they are going to some view points - because the views there are really good. But at one point I ended up being a far more interesting attraction to the tons of tourists than the great views: OH MY GOD, A GIRL WITH BLOND HAIR!! WHAT AN ATTRACTION!! I ended up standing there for at least 3-4min (considering that taking a photo takes a few seconds, this is a looong time) smiling while being taken on photo with many Chinese tour-group-participants... But well, I'm already used to being taken on photo - asked or unasked...

This park is simply breathtaking! Photos can only give you a slight idea of the place - you have to see it in real (maybe you should watch "The Avatar", which took the idea of it's scenery from this very park). But still, I will just write a few comments on these few photos - for more photos just check my Zhangjiajie-gallery!

The viewpoint I took this picture from is called "Bridge Viewing Point" - and if you look precisely you can see the "World Number 1 Natural Bridge", which is in fact amazing:

This are the "Fields in the sky" - and these rice fields are literally in the sky on the top of one of the big stone-pillar!

At this very point your heart stops beating for a few seconds: you can go to the edge and look down without any fence (no wonder they don't guide the groups here...)

This photo doesn't need a comment - I simply find it really beautiful :)

But ok, when seeing these pictures - all taken from viewpoints where Chinese tour groups wouldn't go to - you may: why are they then participating in one of these stupid tours??

Well, just one week later we ended up taking a tour myself: From Yangshuo, a super-touristy village (more about that in my next story), we wanted to see the Dragon Backbone Riceterraces on a daytrip. Taking public transportation would have ment taking 3 different busses and still paying entry into the area. And with the tour we got it all included - very comfortable, but well - it is a tourgroup...

So instead of just driving us to the area, not annoying us in the bus and leaving us alone for a few hours, our tourguide explained us about the tour details during the bus ride. And of course it included a folklore-show (no joke: the "long hair village") on the way for extra money... So all those, who didn't want to see this stupid show had to wait for an hour till the others came back to the tourbus.
 

In the area itself we ended up having only 2-3 hours to walk around - of course where all the other tourgroups were walking around. But taking a "only for farmers"-route Niku and me ended up again being all by ourselfs and enjoying the beautiful scenery (one month earlier before the harvest it would have been really beautiful - you can't have it all)...

I feel like it was ok, as we only had time for a daytrip. But to be honest: I don't know what I missed - I was part of a stupid tour group so I was obliged to be back at the bus after 3 hours...

So I only got an idea of it - but this idea is still really nice indeed:

Am I unfair treating tyical Chinese tourist-groups like this?? Well, don't worry, in my next story, which is already in my head, I won't be nice to Western type of tourism in this region neither - or lets say it in a German way: "I won't leave a good hair on Western tourims" :)