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Tag: China

How to Keep Calm and Travel China

How to Keep Calm and Travel China

Travelling (mainland) China can be challenging. It’s Asia on an advanced level, definitely. Our Lonelyplanet guide book had told us to treat the journey more like an adventure rather than a holiday. We thought, well, we always do that with our travels, so what could possibly be so different? Well, we found out, there are a few things. So here is what we learnt put together in a basic survival guide to make your journey through the Middle Kingdom as smooth and hassle-free as…

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Hiking in Hongkong or China for Beginners

Hiking in Hongkong or China for Beginners

  We think it’s best to put Hongkong at the end of your China trip, since it’s likely you’ll get a cultural shock when doing it the other way round. Hongkong is China, but it’s still completely different. Must be the British influence, that’s still lingering around. It’s much easier. Starting with the language, English is present everywhere, on street signs, busses, trams, on menus in restaurants, in shops… And most people speak it, too, and quite well. So no…

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Off the beaten track: East meets West in Kaiping, Guangdong

Off the beaten track: East meets West in Kaiping, Guangdong

  On our way to Hongkong we stopped in Guangzhou, from where we did a little side trip to the tiny village of Kaiping (roundabout 600,000 inhabitants, therefore a village, clearly). Obviously, not a lot of tourists do that, at least not Western tourists. We hardly saw any. The main attraction around that area are the imposing towers, the so-called Diaolou. They were built by emigrant Chinese, who returned wealthy from overseas. They found their hometowns threatened by raiding bandits and regular floods….

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