Zhengzhou

After a hasty exit out of Kaifeng we where happy to be on our way to a new destination. The start of the journey was good, free cab ride, free bus ticket (yep a nice girl, for some reason, bought them for us ???), what more could we want.

After about 2 hours on the bus i woke up to see some tall flats, in China they really do have rows and rows of tower blocks, its insane how many people they must fit in there.

Anyway i asked Tom to get out the lonely planet book, which so far has been our most valuable item away with us, to see if we could get some sort of reference as to where we were using the road names.

It was at that point that we both realised the book was back in Kaifeng on the luggage x ray machine....bollocks. Arguing whose thought it was (toms :P) we had no choice but buy a ticket and head back to Kaifeng, i guess it was karma making us repay the ticket we had got for free.

After getting to Kaifeng we found out the lovely people there had sent it on the bus that left just after us and was now probably in Zhengzhou (pronounced Jengjo). 2 hours back on the bus and we were finally at our new destination....yay -_-.

The lonely planet book did tell us that there wasnt much cheap accomodation at this place and that it was a mini metropolis so we were excited and also anxious to see if we could find anything in our budget.

Walking into the first hotel we were greeted with prices of about 200 yuan per room. Weeeellll out of our budget. The girl who served us was really really nice. Having to decline the room we headed out, she generally seemed sorry, i think she thought we were going to sleep on the streets or something.

Walking around a bit more, with more of the same prices, i thought we would try our luck back at the hotel with the nice girl. She seemed to like us and we thought we might be able to sway her a bit.

Walking back in we tried to explain the money we had and that we wanted 2 beds 1 room. Chinese write excellent english but speaking isnt too good. So we communicated to this girl almost entirely through pen and paper.

She tried and tried, at this point Tom was saying lets forget about it, but i knew she took a liking to us and perservered with trying to explain what we wanted, she called up someone and after 5 mins on the phone she wrote down 2 beds, 1 room, 100 yuan. Bingo, Sorted!

Smiling and saying 'yes, thankyou' seemed to cheer her up. It just goes to show haggling out here really does work. We got a room half price!

Once getting to our room in good spirits they were soon raised higher when we walked in there. By far the nicest room we had stayed in so far. Opening the curtains raised the mood even higher, we were on the 7th floor and our room faced the river looking out to the rest of the city. We had hit the jackpot and we were only paying the same amount we usually paid to stay in a hostel.

We walked around the river and saw loads and loads of people dancing. Literally 2-300 people where out in the park along the river dancing and practising tai chi, we had never seen this on such a large scale in China. Its really cool, you get a sense of community in the city, something non existent in London, plus people are exercising and keeping fit, all walks of life, all ages, hopefully a tradition China will not lose.

There was a street lined with restaurants, we decided to head down there and see if anything was still open, finding a nice quiet place at the end of the strip we were quick to order up 5 dishes between us. First up a huge plate of fried vegatables, going from the size of this plate we knew we had a feast on the way, the pictures looked tiny, but Chinese people really do not mess about with their portions. Up came the second plate, even bigger than the first, it was braised beef, baby sweetcorn, runner beans, peppers, chilli's in a beef gravy kind of thing. Delicious but too big, then came the fried Chicken which was amazing, the batter had hints of soy sauce in it but the batter itself was sweet, kind of prawn cracker kind of sweetness and texture, light and fluffy, so you had a sweet and sour hitting your tongue with every bite! Then a bowl each, and it was another big bowl, of noodles with beef, mushroom, peppers and corriander sauce. A huge meal that we never got to finish but boy was it yummy!

The next few days we just walked around city, there's no real attractions in Zhengzhou, it just a nice city to spend a few days in. We went back to the first restaurant another 2 times while we were in the city, the fried chicken was just too good to resist.

It was Toms birthday while in Zhengzhou and he wanted to find a cinema to try and watch a film in english. Asking the nice girl at the counter we got some directions, getting on the bus we cruised around Zhengzhou, we saw a whole new part of the city that we hadnt seen before and i quickly understood what the guide book was getting at when it called Zhengzhou a 'mini metroplois'. It was even more built up than where we were staying, there were loads and loads of shops, shopping complexes, cafes, bakeries, restaurants and.....a cinema! Tom was getting excited with the prospect of watching a film in english on his birthday but was soon cut down when he was told no english films were being shown, well that was that dream burnt to ashes. On a slightly better note i got a lovely haagen daz ice cream. Looking around for a few hours we headed back home empty handed.

As it was tom's bday we wanted to eat something good, thoughts of that chicken soon came back into our mind and after a shower we were straight back down there to order 1 plate each of the crispy chicken and a bowl of noodles each. It was so good, and very cheap. Walking back we saw huge crowds along the river again, it felt like they were having a party out in the park everynight.

Time came and it was time to move on to our next destination. It was pretty late at night and i knew the nice girl would be working so i thought it would be a good time to go down and ask for some more help. We wanted to know how to get to the bus station. Writing down on a piece of paper she told me where to find the station, the guy who was working the night shift as well, jumped up and told me to come with him, the girl said to me 'we want to help you, it will not cost you anything' i guess my face of confusion must of looked like i was expecting to get charged for their service, anyway i walked outside with the man and he pointed to his little electric moped. I started laughing, i pointed at the bike and then pointed at me in disbelief. This thing was pretty small and being electric powered i didnt think we would get very far with me on the back. Never taking no for an answer i was on the back of this bike whizzing along at midnight. It was my first time on the back of a bike, even if it was only electric powered, it was pretty exciting. The man drove me to the bus station so i would know where to go the next day, very helpful people indeed :)

The next morning came and we had to say our goodbyes, the nice girl wrote us a note with directions and messages to give to people if we got lost, she was really helpful and i was actually a bit sad to say goodbye.

Next stop, Louyang!

Check out some pics from Zhengzhou (including the view from our room) here - http://www.flickr.com/photos/the_invalid/sets/72157621137803852/

Kaifeng

We arrived in Kaifeng at about 6pm, we jumped off the train, put our bags on our back and walked to the exit, i heard the train starting to pull away and dropped my bags in a sudden thought of 'oh fuck!'. I then proceeded with this thought in my head with shouting out over and over 'shit, shit, fuck'. Tom stopped and asked what was wrong, i didnt even bother checking my bags, i was 100% certain of it, he asked again 'whats the matter'. I said probably the worst words a person in the middle of china can say......'ive left my wallet on the train'. Not just money, it had my passport, insurance card, BOTH of my debit cards and all of my money, to put it blunty, i was fucked.

The train was already picking up speed, i didnt even bother turning around, there was a police station at the train station, a man came out and with the use of hand action and toms wallet we got the message across.

He told us to sit down and he got on the phone, i was running through my head how on earth i would go about getting another passport, debit cards etc, for some reason i was quite certain i was going to get it back, i guess its was the goodwill of the Chinese people that i had encountered so far that led me to this thought.

A few more train operators came into the room and helped us carry our luggage into there office, by this time i was on the phone to my parents to let them know just incase i have to cancel all my cards and how long i should wait before i do it.

Luckily there was one person who talked english who worked there and he advised us they were calling the next station to ask them to look for it. I left it under my pillow when i took it off to sleep. I didnt think no one would pick it up other than the workers who change the bed sheets, all in all i was still pretty confident about getting it back.

Time ticked away, we were hoping to see some of the famous night markets of Kaifeng but it got round to 8pm and still we were being told they will let us know soon. At about 8.30pm the man told us they had found it and it was coming back on a train now, i was, as you can imagine, relieved, i thought, at the least i would have to head to the next city to pick it up myself.

As they were changing shifts they took us into a really nice swanky room where we could wait. 10pm came round and in came the workers.....They had my wallet!!! Shaking all there hands with a massive smile on my face i said thankyou.

10.30pm after a good 4 hours wait, we were in Kaifeng, we missed the night market but i was just happy to have everything on my person`:)

We had a look in the lonely planet book to see if there where any hostels near by, all of them were in the centre of town and we were outside of the city walls. We got a cab to take us into the centre of the city. In the cab we passed by the busy streets full of night markets, most where shutting up now (the guide book said the night markets are worth a visit to kaifeng alone). We got dropped off in the centre of town and picked a direction to walk in and headed off trying to find a hostel.

The markets where shutting up but the streets where still full of people, tramps and piles and piles of litter from the markets.

It was rather strange but the street names on the map of our lonely planet book differed from the actual signs on the streets. Kaifeng is pretty small so we knew we were down the right road just different names, i guess its because the book is over a year old and maybe, for some reason, they changed the street names.

Anyway we found a hotel (you can usually tell as they have numbers like 40,60,120 yuan) in the windows, stating the prices of the rooms.

We headed in there and with my newly learnt word 'binguan', meaning hotel, we quickly discovered they had no rooms. Asking where there was another cheap hotel we got pointed across the road to a rather expensive one. We sat on the pavement for a while with my torch in one hand and the map in the other trying to search for another hostel sign on the map.

We eventually found Dajintai hotel, which is the one we were looking for whilst walking around the streets, we must of passed it 3 times. Getting ourselves a nice cheap room for 40 yuan (£4) each was a good finish to the day.

There are a few 24 hour restaurant in kaifeng and managed to get a late night snack before heading to bed.

The next day we did what we usually do on the first day in a new city, walk around and get our bearings.

Upon walking around we soon discovered there wasnt really much to do here, a few temples, a park and the night market and that was pretty much it. We killed the rest of the day walking around, we just wanted to see what all the fuss was about with the night market.

7pm came round and we headed out, our hotel was down the same street the market is, its pretty much right outside. The streets were changed into a mass of stalls (easily over 300 of them), tables & chairs and plenty, plenty of people.

The streets were heaving, walking up and down the streets we noticed that, to our dissapointment, most of the stalls sold the same things.

It really wierd in china, you will find street of 50 shops selling the same thing, everywhere you go. This market was the same.

There were about 3 different types of stalls, one selling sweets, like peanuts in sugar, sweet rice puddings etc, the other selling grilled fish and meats, a lot like the Qingdao stalls i mentioned, and the last sold noodles, potatos etc. That was pretty much it, just hundreds and hundreds of these stalls selling the same thing, Very dissapointing.

We decided to stay in kaifeng for a few days, even though there wasnt anything really to do.

The biggest rip off we have come across so far was Longting park. Admission for 45 yuan, the place was surrounded by streets so really we could of just of paid and walked around its perimeter and seen all it had to offer. It had some crap statues of some people doing stuff, that really is probably the best i could describe it seriously. It had a temple at the top of the park which was filled up with more of these disney land type figures. I think we spent 30 mins in there, 20 minutes of which were spent sitting down thinking why the fuck did we pay to get in.

Kaifeng was a big let down, the park did it for us, we actually went back to the hotel checked out and got out of there and headed to Zhengzhou which will hopefully be better than Kaifeng.