Almost six weeks has elaspsed since Nick and I made that rather frenzied departure from Uppsala, and I know it’s cliched to say, but what a journey!
As a friend of mine (who is all too aware of Frick’s unfortuante habit of missing trains) remarked to me today, “you’ve done well, you’ve made it all the way without missing any trains or anything.”
And it’s true. We made every train (except for the very first one!), found every hotel, managed to traverse three (or four if you count Hong Kong) depsite our complete incompetence at the local lingos and, most importantly of all, without even having had a single argument of consequence between each other. Sure, there have been disagreements (and plenty of them, but wouldn’t it be boring without them!?), but testament to Nick’s patience and acceptance, nothing has got between us. In fact, it’s a journey that I think has cemented a long and good friendship!
But enough of the emotional drivel!
How have the last few days been?
Well, in the last update canvassed our first few days in Beijing.
Since then we have taken three more trains: an overnight sleeper from Beijing to Xi’an, a high speed service from Xi’an to Shanghai and our final sleeper from Shanghai to Hong Kong.
All trains were very efficient and comfortable. The sleeper trains saved us a night of accommodation, and the high speed train (for me at least) was an undeniably one of the highlights of the trip. The feeling of flying as we zoomed through the Chinese country side on newly constructed high speed rail overpasses was wonderful. And the quick check in and easy embarking/ disembarking of the train made it superior in almost every way to a flight on the same route. I could continue, but for the sake of brevity let me just say Chinese high speed trains are great!
On our last day in Beijing we visited the Beijing Railway museum (Nick was very patient to visit yet another one of these!), which highlighted the importance of railways in China’s history especially over the last 50 years during the boom. The almost alarmingly rapid growth of the Chinese high speed rail system was heavily emphasised with a proud tone in the writing of the museum currators, and it is impresive. Over the last decades over 22,000 km of dedicated high speed rail has been constructed, linking just about every major Chinese city with fast, low carbon transport. Winner!
After a night on the air conditioned (thank god, it was still 38 degrees outside!) sleeper to Xi’an (during which we witnissed a mega thunderstorm lighting up the sky from our train window**) and arrived quite fresh for two days of sightseeing in Xi’an. Unfortunately, there was no escape from the unrelenting heat that had characterised our time in Beijing, however we braved the heat and cycled around the ancient city walls of Xi’an. Back in the day, Xi’an was one of the world’s first and largest cities, and these walls protected the Emperors from invading forces. The views from the tandem Nick and I rode around the wall on were framed by oodles and oodles of apartment towers, but we also gained glimpses into beautiful temples and of the lush linear gardens around the moat of the outer wall.
We needed some chill (literally!) time after this and returned to our hostel for a cold shower and quiet game of pool before heading out to an authentically-spicy noodle restaurant. My dish brought tears to my eyes and was quite painful, and I don’t think I’ve ever had such a thirst-quenching beer in my life!
Next, it was time for the trip out to the famed terracotta warriors. At this incredible World Heritage Site, terracotta sculptures were made to be buried with China’s first Emperor Qin Shi Huang to protect him in his afterlife.
There are over 8,000, and for an archaelogy or ancient history scholar would be fascinating. All were individually crafted and painted. The enormous halls they are kept in were absolutely rammed with Chinese domestic tourists and we passed an enjoyable afternoon marvelling at the historical sculptures and people watching.
Following our speedy journey on the high speed train to Shanghai the next morning, we passed an excellent day being spoilled rotten by Nick’s friend Jeffrey’s Mum. They picked us up from the train station and gave us a private tour of the city including a short punt across the Huangpu River which afforded us excellent views of Shanghai’s picturesque skyscrapers, dinner at a delicious vegetarian restaurant, haircuts (because apparently we were looking a bit shaggy after so many weeks travelling through Siberia!) and most pamperingly of all, a 2 hour foot and body massage. We felt like roughians, emerging from the wilds of the world to the sophisticated and slick ultra modern city of Shanghai who had been sponsored by Jeffrey’s mother to smarten ourselves up.
The next day, they showed Nick exactly where to buy a suit jacket and bargained a decent price for him.
After a brief tour around the only museum open on Mondays, the Shanghai Museum (very busy but with some excellent pottery, jade and caligraphy displays) it was time for our final sleeper train to Beijing. We had the compartment to ourselves and slept very well.
Our final day of the trip in Hong Kong was very brief because our train did not arrive until mid afternoon, and by the time we had done the necessary shopping and packing, it was time for bed.
And so here I am in the airport waiting to go home after an incredible 6 weeks and year. It’s a surreal feeling, but despite how much I miss Sweden and Uppsala, I am looking forward to returning home to Melbourne.
I would love to lather you with more details of the last few days, but my carbon-spewing flying machine is about to leave from gate 210 of Hong Kong’s enormous international airport, so it’s time for me to skadaddle!
So, on behalf of Frick, thanks for reading this blog!
We hope you’ve enjoyed following our updates as much as we’ve enjoyed writing them!
Further, we hope this blog is an inspiration to you to pursue your own low carbon adventures! Everyone needs a holiday (and adventure!) every now and then, but there’s no reason that holiday needs to cook the planet. Hopefully this blog is one tiny piece in the puzzle of helping to begin the process of creating the cultural change required in the developed world to decarbonise our society. Of course we’ll still be working on the big stuff, like fighting Adani in Australia and getting our institutions to divest from fossil fuels, but we feel it’s important to lead by example where possible to fight the climate crisis!
And, just as important as fighting climate change, if you want a seriously fun and intersting experience, I can’t recomend a trans-Asian train trip highly enough!
If you have any questions about planning one, we are more than happy for you to contact us!
One day we hope to do the whole thing again (in the other direction!) so maybe you can join us!
For the final time on this adventure I say toot-toot-toot-a-loo!
/Fred on behalf of Frick
**if we had caught a plane on this route, it would have been delayed due to this electrical activity, another win for trains!