We had quite an adventurous few days around Guilin and Yangshuo - the premier destinations of Guangxi province in China. Riding out the tail-end of the National Holiday here meant the crowds dissipated a little, prices dropped a tad, and there was an approximate 0.025% drop in spitting.
Click read more to find out how we got to, around, and back from the venerable Lòngjî Rice Terraces.
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~ a quick wrap up of a hectic month ~We’ve just eaten a steaming bowl of spicy noodle soup for breakfast, washed down with a pretty average coffee, and are sitting in a sunny cafe in Shangri-la, the proverbial Chinese city of paradise where our time in China is sadly coming to an end. It’s been a country of long walks, long train rides and glorious scenery, and as we’ve just arrived at our highest altitude yet of over 3000m we thought we’d take some time out to reflect on the whirlwind this month has been while we take some time out to acclimatise to our new altitude.
China is a beast of a country. There is years worth of travel to be done here, and from the beginning we knew with only one month we’d have to be pretty selective with our destinations. We drew up our initial plan which we later realised was severely ambitious, and were quickly forced to cut it back to about a third of what we had initially planned. The crippling censorship of the internet makes it only more challenging, and we quickly discovered that most of the tools we rely on for planning on the go aren’t accessible at all. Our blog’s also suffered, with no access to Weebly, Instagram, Facebook, Gmail or Google Maps, its made it frustrating at times, but once we figured out the Chinese way of doing things we were working our way through the laneways, highways and mountain trails of China like pros. For travel tips, highlights and our itinerary, click 'read more' below. Its a pretty common route, jumping on the Trans Mongolian in Moscow, a few weeks enjoying the vast open spaces of Mongolia and then onwards to China, but if you are like us and travelling for many months, the logistics of visa’s can get tricky. We met so many travellers following the same path, but surprisingly little info online on how to apply for a Chinese visa from Mongolia. Many travellers are able to apply from their home country before the journey begins, but if you are like us and 5 months into the trip, this isn’t an option.
Travel blogs were the most useful source of information, but the application process seems to have changed from previous years and may have even become slightly more relaxed. Previous items such as a letter of invitation aren’t required now, which is thankfully one less piece of paper to worry about. So, if you are an Australian applying for a Chinese Tourist visa from Mongolia, here’s the process. Note: This seemed to be the case for most other countries too, unless you are Indonesian and then you can only apply with a Mongolian permanent residency card (which makes it virtually impossible….this happened to an unlucky Indonesian in our travel group) |
EMMA & PETEWe're just two Aussie's who met in London, married in Prague and travelled overland back to Australia.
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