About China. Holidays in China

Travels and discoveries were made by all peoples of the world. Such centers of human civilization as China and India are no exception in this regard.
The civilization of Ancient China originates in the middle of the II millennium BC. e. in the Juane river basin. By the end of the II millennium BC. The Chinese settled in East Asia, reaching the banks of the Amur in the north and the southern tip of the Indochinese Peninsula. In ancient China, spatial ideas about the surrounding world were also not limited to the borders of their country. Chinese travelers were well aware of the geography of China. The ancient Chinese sailed not only on their rivers, but also went out on their ships to the Pacific Ocean.
Already in the period of the Shan-Yin dynasty (XVII - XII centuries BC), the Chinese state had overseas colonies. You can learn about this from the Shan Odes, in one of the parts of the Book of Songs. In the XI century BC. during the ascension to the throne of one of the emperors of the Zhou dynasty, a ship was presented to him as a gift.
The fact that sea travel was an integral part of the life of Ancient China is evidenced by the fact that the ruler of the kingdom of Qi in the VI century BC. for six months sailed on a ship on the sea for research purposes. The Chinese philosopher Confucius spent over 13 years as an itinerant teacher.
In addition to merchant and pleasure ships, powerful warships also existed in ancient China. The chronicler reports a major naval battle between the kingdoms of Wu and Qi in 485 BC. It is known that in these kingdoms there were special shipyards where military, civil ships, as well as ships for government officials and ambassadors were built.
To intensify trade in ancient China from the 7th century. BC. detailed geographical overviews were created, which can be considered as a prototype of a guidebook. They described not only natural conditions, but also the economy, transport, etc.
During the Zhangguo era, pilgrimage and scientific tourism were born in China. The priests went to the Bohaiwan Bay (Yellow Sea) to the islands of Penglai and Yingzhou, where the elders lived, who owned the secret of immortality.
Another example of the deep knowledge of the Chinese in geography is the construction of the Great Wall of China. Its construction, which began in the 4th c. BC, proves the excellent knowledge of the Chinese in the field of physical geography. The wall ran clearly along the border separating the steppe regions, where the nomads lived, from the agricultural ones.
The intensity of travel in ancient China increased in the III century. BC. during the Han Dynasty. Two factors contributed to this: a) the presence of well-developed means of communication in the country, b) the liberalization of political life.
The most famous traveler of ancient China was Sima Qian. Three great journeys of Sima Qian are known, which were made in the period 125 - 120 BC
The first is to the southwest and northwest of China. Along the lower reaches of the Yellow River, Sima Qian passed through the valleys of the Huaihe and Yangtze rivers to Taihu Lake. Further, south of the Yangtze and through Zhejiang, he arrived in the last possession of China in the south, the province of Hunan. The way back passed along the Xiangjiang River, Dong-ting Lake, the lower reaches of the Yangtze and further north.
The second is the newly conquered areas in the southwest by China. Through Sichu-an and Yunnan province, Sima Qian reached the border of China with Burma.
The third is to the northwest along the Great Wall of China to the province of Gansu.
Sima Qian not only traveled, but also described his travels in detail. He is called "the father of Chinese historiography", in European literature "Chinese Herodotus". His "Historical Notes" were a kind of standard for subsequent historians. Sy-ma Qian describes in most detail the northern neighbors of China - the Huns, who in the III century. BC. formed a tribal alliance. His writings also provide geographical information about China's southwestern neighbors, such as Korea.
The works of Sima Qian have been partially translated and published in European languages. The translation into Russian was made by N.Ya.Bichurin. It is contained in the "Collection of information about the peoples who lived in Central Asia in ancient times" (M., 1950).
One of the first Chinese travelers was Zhang Qian, who lived around the 2nd century BC. BC. and held a diplomatic post at the imperial court. He often traveled abroad on business. His travels are detailed by Sima Qian.
Zhang Qian was entrusted with concluding a military alliance between China and the nomadic Yuezhen tribe against the Huns. On this mission, Zhang Qian was captured by the Huns, where he spent 10 years. After he managed to escape from captivity, he went to the west, overcame the Central Tien Shan and went to Lake Issyk-Kul. There he learned that the Yuezhen had migrated to the Ferghana Valley. But even in the valley he did not find this tribe, since it migrated beyond the borders of Bactria, located along the middle course of the Amu Darya. Having gone there, Zhang Qian discovered this tribe, but he could not fulfill his mission, because by that time the tribe had conquered vast territories and was no longer able to wage new wars. Zhang Qian's way back ran through the Pamirs, the southern tip of Takla-Makan, Lake Lop Nor. On the border with China, he is again captured by the Huns. Only two years later he managed to escape from captivity and return to his homeland.
While traveling, Zhang Qian constantly kept notes. He described Bukhara, the valley of the Ili River, the steppes of Kyrgyzstan, the territory of modern Kazakhstan, located north of the Syr Darya. Zhang Qian's journey was of great economic importance. Chinese merchants rushed west along the route he had traveled. They penetrated not only into Central Asia and India, but also into the countries of Asia Minor and Palestine.
Like other peoples, the ancient Chinese had geographical maps, which they compiled with great care. The oldest surviving maps date back to the Han Dynasty (168 BC). In the 70s. 20th century two maps made on silk were found. One of them is purely geographical, and the other is military. Scientific cartography begins with the encyclopedist Zhang Heng in the 2nd century BC. AD He was the first to create a geographical grid. And in the III century. AD In China, official standards for the production of maps had already been approved and there was a special bureau for the production of cartographic surveys. Card prints were made from wooden clichés.
The Chinese knew well the property of the magnetic needle. A ladle was cut from a piece of magnetite (natural magnetic iron ore), which was placed on a smooth stone surface. The handle of this bucket pointed south. This device was called "Sinan". In China, they also used a plumb line - a "shadow indicator" to determine the time of day. Moreover, the ancient Chinese had a geographical literature. The most famous books include "The Book of Rivers", "The Book of Seas and Mountains", "The Book of Chinese Geography".
The significance of China in the socio-cultural space of that time was enormous. In the chronicle of 166 BC. contains information about the visit of Chinese merchants to the Roman Empire and their meeting with Emperor Marcus Aurelius Anthony. Chinese merchants paved the way through Central Asia, the Middle East, Palestine to Ancient Rome, which gave rise to the "Great Silk Road". But China's closest trading partners were the peoples who inhabited the Indian subcontinent.

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1. Culture of China. China is home to one of the oldest and most complex civilizations in the world, and perhaps the only one where the physical type of the population has not changed for 5 millennia. China has a history spanning 5,000 years of artistic, philosophical and political development. Although regional differences create a sense of diversity, a common language and religious and ethical views unite the culture of China, within which such globally significant phenomena as Confucianism and Taoism were created.
2. Nature of China. A country that occupies such a vast territory on the surface of our planet as China cannot be deprived of natural beauties. About 300 national parks and reserves have been established in the country, protecting about 2% of China's land area. The third largest country in the world is distinguished by a variety of landscapes: from the fertile lowlands in the east, the relief rises to the highlands of Tibet in the west and to the Himalayas in the southwest. In the west of China, high mountain plateaus and steppe regions predominate, which turn into deserts in the northwest and north. In the interior of the country there are tropical forests, which turn into bamboo forests on the hills, and mangrove forests on the coast. These are the favorite habitats of pandas, monkeys, leopards, and in some cases, elephants. In the vast steppe and desert expanses in the north, gazelles and antelopes live.
3. Chinese economic miracle. One of the most important events in the world economic history of the last quarter of the 20th century was the unprecedented success of the Chinese economy. You can see this with your own eyes.
4. Holidays in Hainan. Hainan is a huge tropical island located in southern China. The territory of the island is 34,000 sq. km, the population is almost 7 million people. Hainan is located on the same latitude as Hawaii, which is why the island is often referred to as "Eastern Hawaii".
5. Shopping. In general, it is difficult to meet a person who has visited China and who has not succumbed to the temptation to buy various souvenirs, trinkets and handicrafts with him. Because the choice of souvenirs in the shops is simply amazing.
6. A variety of traditions and customs of the peoples inhabiting China. China is a multinational state with more than 55 nationalities living on its territory. Among the ethnic groups, the most numerous (over 1 million people) are the Zhuang, Hui, Uighurs, and (Zu), Miao, Manchus, Tibetans, Mongols, Tujia, Bui, Koreans, Dong, Yao, Bai, Hani (Aini), Kazakhs, give and whether.
7. Visit the Great Wall of China - a wonder of the world. It is perhaps difficult to find a person who has never heard of the Great Wall of China. The wall is indeed a symbol of China, both for the Chinese themselves and for foreigners. At the entrance to the restored part of the Wall, you can see the inscription made by Mao Tse Tung - "If you have not visited the Great Wall of China, you are not a real Chinese." And if you think about it, it really is.
8. Chinese cuisine is distinguished by its great originality, expressed in the use of special sticks that capture food pieces like a crane's beak, as well as in a huge variety of food materials such as cat, dog and snake meat, shark fins, tree mushrooms and bamboo, which are seasoned with various sauces (especially soy).
9. Chinese medicine. For many centuries, special people - folk doctors (i-sheng) have collected, tested and summarized the experience of treating people with folk remedies. They retained their knowledge and passed it on to their offspring both orally and by writing in special medical books (i-shu-tzu). They amounted to more than 1800 works, comprising more than 30,000 volumes, and which are the most valuable contribution of the Chinese people to the treasury of world medicine.
10. Possibility to combine all this in one trip!

China is one of the oldest states on the planet and one of the richest cultures, which gave the whole world such great inventions as gunpowder, paper, compass and many others. The third largest (after Russia and Canada) and the first in terms of population (1.3 billion people) state is actively developing, claiming the economic laurels of such an industrial bison as the United States, successfully leaving high-tech Japan behind, having produced a GDP equal to 5.745 trillion US dollars in 2010 .

Chinese civilization is considered one of the oldest and, according to some scientists, is about 5,000 years old, of which 3,500 are reliably confirmed by various sources. Since ancient times, the Chinese people have been engaged in agriculture and were more socially active than the surrounding peoples and tribes, which was largely facilitated by the teachings of Confucius, who paid great attention to achieving prosperity in earthly life, not thanks to divine providence, but by applying their own strength. Confucianism as a state ideology was adopted in the 1st century BC. Throughout its history, the Chinese state has cyclically gone through the processes of unification and disintegration, and some territories have become parts of other states. The whole history of China is divided into periods of reign of various dynasties, of which there are about 20, and a description of all the events that occurred during their reign will take more than one volume. The history of modern China, that is, the People's Republic of China, begins in 1949, when, during the civil war, with the support of the USSR, the Communist Party of China came to power. The Soviet Union in the early stages of the formation of Chinese communism actively supported its comrades in word and deed, helping to carry out nationalization, industrialization and collectivization. The initially set radical course aimed along a “special path” at isolating Chinese society and the market and abolishing commodity-money relations and private property was rejected by the reformer Deng Xiaoping who came to power in 1978, and instead it was decided to build a socialist market economy and in which elements of capitalism and a planned economy would coexist. The active attraction of foreign investment and the creation of free economic zones, as well as the rapid development of science and technology, did their job, and by the end of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s, China was able to completely solve the problem of food shortages and achieve stable and high GDP growth rates.

Today, the economy of communist China ranks second in the world in terms of GDP, and it is almost impossible to find a product name that would not be produced in this country. There is a complete feeling that the Chinese industry produces absolutely everything, and if earlier the notorious inscription “Made in China” was synonymous with low prices and even lower quality, today this situation is gradually improving and the manufacturer begins to work in the name. China is developing more and more new industries and markets, such as, for example, the automotive industry, buying up well-known brands (Hummer), copying and making the final product more accessible and attractive. Even eminent manufacturers today locate their production in China, recognizing the level of quality as appropriate in order to produce products under their own brand. Today, China has 4 special economic zones, 14 duty-free zones, 53 high-tech development zones, and about 70 scientific and technical zones that provide work for specialists who have received education abroad. All of these measures create a huge pull force for the best people, technology, money and resources.

The country of the scarlet banner and golden stars is the largest country in Asia and borders on such countries as Russia, India, Afghanistan, Vietnam and a number of others. The relief of China is extremely diverse: in the western part of the country lies one of the highest mountain systems in the world - the Himalayas, with the highest peak in the world - Mount Everest (8848 m). In the eastern part is the Great China Plain, stretching for a thousand kilometers along the shores of the Yellow and East China Seas. Between them there are several mountain systems of various heights, forming "steps" to the sea. The climate is also varied, ranging from subtropical with hot, muggy summers and mild winters in the south to temperate continental climates in the north. If frost can hit -30 in the north, then the south of the country suffers from monsoons and typhoons.

The bowels of China are very rich and carry all the minerals that a modern rapidly developing country needs. China's main fossil fuel is coal, which has one of the largest reserves in the world. Oil reserves in the country are also significant for the countries of this region. It should be noted that in certain positions, for example, in the production of gold, China is the leader, and more and more actively begins to pursue a policy of resource expansion, in particular in Africa.

There are 56 different peoples living in China, each of which has its own national customs and traditions. However, these peoples make up only 7% of the population, and the remaining 93% are Chinese. The proportion of representatives of other nationalities is extremely small. China is one of the few countries in the world where the state is trying to regulate the birth rate in an effort not to increase, but, on the contrary, to reduce the rate of population growth. About 36% of the country's population live in cities, and the remaining 64% live in rural areas. The traditional religions of the country are Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism. Islam and Christianity are also represented, but in statistically insignificant numbers. In addition to traditional world religions, paganism and polytheism have been preserved among representatives of some nationalities.

As the last constitution of the People's Republic of China, adopted in 1982, states, China is a socialist state of people's democratic dictatorship. The leadership of the country is carried out by the Communist Party through the highest body of state power - the unicameral National People's Congress. The head of state is the Secretary General. The official currency of the PRC is the yuan. The capital of China is Beijing.

Article text updated: 05/29/2018

It seems that a whole eternity passes from vacation to vacation, and it will not be possible to wait for the moment when you can again forget about current affairs and enjoy the cup of adventure in another country. But sooner or later, the day comes when, looking at the neat numbers of the calendar, you realize that it's time to decide where to go on a trip this time. After comparing all the pros and cons at the family council, we decided that we wanted to go to China again for extraordinary excursions, and we would get our dose of vitamin D produced by the body in the sun on the beaches of the Gulf of Thailand in the resort of Pattaya in Thailand. Today I am starting a series of reports about my trip to these countries in the second half of October this year.

1. Reasons why we didn't choose other countries for our holidays.
2. Map and explanation of why changes had to be made to the itinerary.
3. Photos and description of an actual trip to China.
4. What other sights could be seen next to the places that we visited.
5. What photographic equipment (camera, lenses and tripod) I took on a trip.
6. What dangers await tourists in China.
7. Obtaining a visa for Russians. What problems can arise if you have a Turkish stamp in your passport.
8. How to buy a ticket for a Chinese train from Russia.
9. Comparison of the economic situation in the PRC and the Russian Federation.
10. Food in China.
11. Tips for travelers planning solo travel.
12. Conclusion to the report.

1. Why we again went to rest in China and Thailand

Upon learning that we were going on vacation to China and Thailand, our friends asked in bewilderment: “Why go there again? Are there not many other interesting places on the planet where you can have an exciting vacation? Hmm… Probably, Katya and I visited too many countries, so the choice of where to go on a trip was not so wide.

India was in the first place in my preferences: in October, the season for hiking in the Himalayas begins, and I had an old dream: to fly for 10 days to Ladakh (Ladakh; a high-mountainous region in the state of Jammu and Kashmir), whose landscapes seem to exist only in dreams, not reality. The remaining five days you could splash in the warm waters of the Arabian Sea in Goa, although the season is just beginning there. We didn’t go, because we visited India in the spring, a trip to this country twice in a row could threaten with satiety.

In second place is Iran. From report to report, I say that I would like to go to Persia, two years ago I contacted the Tehran branch of Europcar about renting a car. With the relaxation of visa rules in December 2014 (Russians can get a visa for 12 days upon arrival in Tehran), travel preparations have become much easier: there is no need to spend money on trips to the Iranian consulate in Moscow. Restrained from traveling to this country is that tourists mainly come here to see the architectural and historical sights. And I love nature! After carefully studying the English-language reports, I found several places where you can go on a one-day easy trekking in the mountains of Iran. But still there is a minus of rest in this country: only men and women are allowed to swim on the beaches separately - they didn’t want to spend their holidays separately. And in October it is already cool on the sea. A flight from Tehran to Asia for a seaside vacation is expensive.

The next candidate is South Africa, where I have long dreamed of going to rent a car and go on a safari through the country's national parks (possible alternatives are Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe with the Victoria Falls or Uganda with its mountain gorillas). But a deeper study of the reports showed that at this stage of life we ​​will not be able to afford this trip: the prices for a safari are measured in thousands of dollars; and I'm not sure I'll be interested in watching the animals for a few days. In Sri Lanka and India, we visited national parks four times, and half a day was enough for me. I would have to go on a safari for a week - it would have bothered me, it seems to me.

Senegal is one of the wealthiest countries in Africa. You can rent a car and travel half the country. Not far from the capital, Dakar, is the private reserve Bandia (Reserve De Bandia). The entrance is inexpensive, you can see a lot of savannah animals (except predators). The question of a beach holiday remains open.

One of the likely travel options is a safari in the national parks of Tanzania and a flight to Zanzibar, where we rent a car to travel around the island.

In all these African countries, one has to take into account the problems with fever, malaria and the increased level of crime in recent years, as well as the terrorist threat ...

In fact, three countries were seriously considered: India, Thailand and China. In the Celestial Empire, you can see a colossal number of sights: You will have to travel for several years to see all the beauties of the PRC.

In my TOP list of interesting excursions in China, the first place was a two-day trekking through the Tiger Leaping Gorge (虎跳峡) in Yunnan province. And in October, the season also begins there. It was decided: we are going to China for ten days, and from there we fly to Bangkok to spend time on the beach in Pattaya. It's time to make an itinerary.

Video. Trekking through the Leaping Tiger Gorge. Source: Amazing Places on Our Planet channel.

2. China travel itinerary

The monitoring of airfare prices caused a shock: Aeroflot offers to deliver to China and back no cheaper than for 1,000 dead raccoons. Guard! How expensive it became to fly on planes after the collapse of the ruble! Only one company, Air Astana, offers a sane price: for 330 USD, deliver to Beijing, however, with a transfer in Astana.

We calculate the logistics of the route:

1. Departure on Saturday, arrival in the capital of China at 2 am.
2. Departure in the evening to the city of Lijiang (Lijiang, 丽江) with arrival at one in the morning. We get up at 7:30 in the morning to leave by bus at 8:30 to Qiaotou village (Qiaotou, I didn’t find how to write hieroglyphs - maybe one of the site guests will tell you) - 3.5 hours on the way, and then stomp in the mountains for two days.
3. Even if we don't pay attention to the fact that in order to implement such a plan, you need to have the health of the Tin Woodman, it turns out that we have been on the road for 4 days, and we have not seen much. You can continue the route from the village of Qiaotou, passing the Gorge of the Leaping Tiger: we go by bus for 10 hours to the city of Shangri-La (Shangri-La, 香格里拉). It is surrounded by picturesque mountains and is accessed by several weekend hiking trails (see 56 China Attractions link above). Only now, we have only a day and a half to inspect the beauties, after which you need to ram again for 10 hours to Lijiang, and from there fly to Thailand.

Here's the trouble! Dozens of interesting places in China are concentrated in the provinces of Sichuan and Yunnan, but it takes a very long time to get to them if you buy a cheap Air Astana ticket and waste time on a transfer in Beijing.

And here I come across information about such an attraction as the Mysterious Tien Shan Grand Canyon (Tianshan Mysterious Grand Canyon), located just 72 km from Urumqi (Urumqi). Judging by the photographs, it looks like Antelope Canyon in the southwestern United States: winding walls, diffused red light. Photographer's dream! And you can also fly to Urumqi with an Air Astana flight for only 330 USD.

Video. Heap Grand Canyon (Kuche Grand Canyon) in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. We make a travel itinerary for the sights of China.

We decide to implement the Chinese part of the trip according to the following plan:

1. Arrival from Yekaterinburg to Astana at 11:40. Walk around the city center. We rent a hostel to sleep. We fly to China the next morning at 7:20.
2. Arrival in Urumqi, the capital of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR). We go sightseeing for a couple of days and fly to the city of Xian (Xi'an, 西安), next to which is the famous Mount Huashan (Huashan, 华山) with its Path of Fear.
3. We fly from Xi'an to Thailand.

To get a Chinese visa, you need to redeem all tickets and book hotels. That's how we do it. The route map looks like this.

And here comes the first trouble: either the Chinese got confused in the descriptions of their attraction, or I was inattentive, but the Grand Canyon Kucha is located near the village of Kucha (Kuqa County or Kuche, in Chinese: 库车县, in Uighur: كۇچار ناھىيىسى ) 800 km from Urumqi, and it takes almost a day to go there by train ...

Ah-ah-ah! What to do? Tickets sold out, non-refundable! We have two full days planned in Urumqi. Things to do? I convulsively study the few reports from travels in XUAR, and I understand that there are also places of interest for tourists in the vicinity of the capital of this northwestern province of China.

I will not languish. I'll start showing photos of the route. I will only note that two weeks after paying for all air tickets on the Ctrip website, the Chinese airline China Eastern Airlines canceled flight MU2181 from Urumqi to Kunming (Kunming, 昆明), where a three-hour transfer was planned before flying to Thailand. Because of this, we miss flight MU741 to Bangkok. At two o'clock in the morning a Chinese woman called from Shanghai and in English (almost indistinguishable due to the Chinese accent) explained that we had two options: the first was to choose another flight, the second was to collect the money.

I could not understand her on the phone, so I asked her to write by mail. She didn't get my answers. Called back several days in a row. Bottom line: they returned 371 USD for the Xian-Bangkok air ticket, but by that time there were no normal options to fly to Thailand. I had to buy tickets from the low-cost airline Air Asia, whose prices on the website are initially low, but the cost does not include luggage. Full price for two passengers with luggage: 478 USD. The loss in money amounted to 107 USD - the second annoying nuisance.

Tip: plan a sufficiently long time for transfers between flights so as not to break, in the event of a transfer or cancellation of a flight, the entire route -

3. Plan and fact of travel in China

I will try not to stray from the thread of the story and not get too distracted by details so that this chapter of the report does not turn out to be endless. Holidays in China and Thailand lasted from 14 to 29 October 2017.

Day 1. October 14, 2017. We fly to Astana. Arrival at 13:45. By bus we arrive in the center of the capital of Kazakhstan, where 300 meters from the symbol of the city, the monument "Astana-Baiterek" hostel "Hostel Baiterek Astana" is booked through the "Booking" service (address: 23 Syghanaq Street apt. 32, 010000 Astana).

We walk around the house for about an hour, we cannot find the entrance, there is no sign. You have to call the owner from a cell phone (costs for expensive international communications). He is stupid, cannot really explain how to enter the building. From the third time we get to the ninth floor. We are met by a girl - the same guest as we are: “Have you not read the reviews on Booking before booking? It's a nightmare! There is no administrator. Nobody cleans up. I myself, foolishly, made an advance payment.

He calls the owner from his phone, and he says that he has not seen any booking from Booking, and has not been registered there for a long time, and he has no free rooms. If you want, take a place in the common room (there are 6 bunks against the wall) ...

Attention! The money was taken from our card, because we didn’t show up for check-in. Service "Booking"I have been using it for 7 years now and, since there have never been any problems, I had no complaints about this site. Now, faced with the fact that they do not have a support service. On the site, in the "Customer Support" section, a message is posted: "Sorry, we have too many complaints, so we cannot process yours. Here is a list of standard situations and the phone number of the hostel owner – deal with it.” Written in different words, but the meaning is the same. There are no phones!

Of course, legal grounds to callBooking there are no scammers, but they are, in fact, accomplices in the scam. We lost 1200 rubles - we will survive. But I, for example, know people who booked a hotel in Cuba for 9,000 rubles on knocks for two weeks ... Imagine you arrived, and instead of a presidential suite - a barn. Representatives of the hotel shrug their shoulders and say: "Don't check in - we'll write off the money anyway." And there is nowhere to complain about such behavior ...

I checked other booking sites - they all have a customer service phone number. Therefore, I recommend thinking about whether to reserve housing throughBookingand what you will do in case of fraud.

In general, the girl advised us to another hostel "Nochleg" (address: Astana, Left Bank, Saraishyk St., 38; entrance 7, intercom 107, 2nd floor up the stairs), where the room was also inexpensive (6000 tenge - 18, 02 USD). But time was lost, it was getting dark outside. Nevertheless, in Astana we saw almost everything we wanted: we climbed to the top of the Baiterek monument, which overlooks the Water-Green Boulevard and the Ak Orda presidential residence, walked among the skyscrapers along the main street of the capital of Kazakhstan.

Photo 2. The symbol of Astana is Baiterek, a 97-meter tower with a ball on top. You can climb here while traveling to China. Shooting settings: 2.5 sec., +1.33EV, f/9.0, ISO 100, FR=135.

Of course, Astana is impressive. Purely! Skyscrapers. Low prices: 400 meters from the main square of the country (!!!) we ate for 3,000 tenge (9 USD) for two (each - salad, soup, main course and tea; moreover, there was a lot of meat, very tasty dishes of Kazakh cuisine from horse meat and lamb ). Skyscrapers like in Dubai!

Day 2 of China travel. We arrive in Urumqi.

From the airport by taxi (42 RMB by meter) we go to the South Bus Station (Nanjiao Coach Station (南郊客运站)). Here we buy tickets to the town of Turpan (Turpan, 吐鲁番), the distance to which is 184 km.

After 2.5 hours, having driven along a very picturesque highway in the middle of the Takla Makan desert and admiring the thousands of windmills (Dabancheng Power Station, the largest in China, and one of the largest wind farms in Asia, Dabancheng), we arrive at the Turfan bus station and take a taxi to our hostel Dap Youth Hostel.

Day 3 trip to China. Sightseeing around Turfan.

Turpan is a small Uyghur town with a population of about 300,000 people. It is located south of the Bogda Mountains in the Turfan depression (this is the second or third lowest point on the planet in depth: minus 154 meters above sea level).

In ancient times, the city was located on the Great Silk Road. In its vicinity you can see historical monuments over 2000 years old. Now 85% of China's grapes and raisins are produced here.

The owner of Dap Youth Hostel speaks English. There are many foreigners among the guests. With her help, we ordered a taxi in the morning (430 RMB) and traveled all day on excursions. First we went to the Bezeklik caves (Bezeklik Thousand Buddhas Caves, 柏孜克里千佛洞). Between the fifth and ninth centuries they were inhabited by Buddhist monks.

While still at home, looking at the pictures of other tourists in detail, I realized that we would definitely need to climb the mountain next to the caves. Therefore, having wandered around the archaeological complex (there is nothing particularly interesting there), we told the driver to wait below. Storming the mountains of China!

These mountains are lost in one of the largest deserts in the world, Takla Makan. And they are made of sand.

The silence here is not ringing, as it usually happens in our area, if you climb somewhere in the wilderness, but some kind of deaf. Apparently, the sand absorbs sounds. No animals, no birds. Only mountains and sand around ...

Since we arrived in Turpan in mid-October, the weather was quite comfortable: during the day - + 25 ° С, at night - + 5 ° С. But in the summer, I don’t advise you to go to this region of China: the temperature of the slopes of the Bogdo-Ula mountain range reaches +66.8 ° C, so these hills are also called Flaming mountains (火焰山).

To be honest, I did not climb to the very top (since it would take an hour and a half), but to the spur visible in photo No. 6. Katya at that time was sitting downstairs and meditating at the old "anchar" (I don't know, maybe this tree is called differently).

Photo 8. Katya and "anchar" in the Bogdo-Ula mountains in the Takla-Makan desert. Travel report on the outskirts of Urumqi in China. 1/320, +1.0, 8.0, 400, 140.

How can one not recall the lines from Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin's poem "Anchar":

"In the desert stunted and stingy,
On the ground, the heat of the red-hot,
Anchar, like a formidable sentry,
It is worth - one in the whole universe ... "

The second attraction in the vicinity of Turpan, where I really wanted to go, was the ancient Uighur village of Tuyuk-Mazar (Tuyoq or Tuyugou, or Tuyuk, 吐峪沟; GPS coordinates: 42.858519, 89.691976). Among Chinese Muslims, it is famous for the fact that a cave is located here, in which either a miracle happened there, described in the Koran, in Arabic it is called Al-Sahab Kahfi Mazar (“the tomb of the saints in the cave”), or they lived here five pious Muslims (and one convert) to preach the faith. Therefore, every Uyghur who is going to Mecca must first visit Tuyuk Mazar. And the infidels, it seems, are not allowed into the cave.

The village has been preserved as it looked, maybe a thousand years ago. It was very interesting to wander through these nooks and crannies, to the cries of donkeys and the noise of the river below. And what there colored mountains!

The third excursion in the vicinity of Turfan was to be a walk in the minaret of Emin (Emin Minaret). But it turned out that the entrance costs 45 RMB - sorry. Some kind of small church, albeit from the 17th century, assembled from sand bricks - and such money!

We went to the last attraction that we planned to see in the vicinity of Turpan - to the Jiaohe Ruins. This is a settlement built of sand 2300 years ago.

It would be interesting to wander through these strange streets, enjoying the silence. But the fifth trouble happened: the driver forgot to pick up our suitcases at the hostel, and we lost time to return for them (in the evening we have a high-speed train from Turfan to Urumqi). In addition, we did not know that we still needed to pay 15 RMB per person for a ticket in an electric car - we had to stomp two kilometers on foot. We almost ran to the ruins of the ancient city and only managed to take a couple of shots.

Note. Unfortunately, when preparing a trip to China, I did not come across information that Turpan is a very famous place among Russian archaeologists. Several expeditions were organized to these regions even under Tsarist Russia. Now I have found pre-revolutionary books published by Russian researchers - it is very exciting to read their reports, descriptions of excavations, look at old photographs. Nicholas Roerich and Lev Gumilyov, and many others have visited here. The historian of geographical science Eduard Makarovich Murzaev once said: “Almost everyone who studied Central Asia tried to build a route in such a way as to visit Turfan.”

And in our time, archaeologists from various Russian universities take part in excavations organized by Chinese colleagues. They write very exciting articles about the history of the region.

From Turfan to Urumqi, while still at home, we booked tickets for a high-speed train through the Ctrip service. Ticket price - 51.5 RMB (including site commission). The distance of 180 km was overcome in 1:18, and at 21:22 we arrived at the Urumqi railway station.

I note that the carriage was half empty and, apparently, it did not make sense to book tickets for this train in advance (they would not have to pay a commission to the Ctrip website). The Ziyou International Youth Hostel in the XUAR capital was booked in advance. A taxi driver took him from the station for 23 RMB (everywhere during this trip through China we paid according to the meter; if the driver does not turn it on when landing, we must remind you).

At the address indicated in the booking voucher, there is some large hotel (I don’t know the name, since the sign is written in hieroglyphs). The receptionist spoke English and even knew a few words in Russian. He explained that the Ziyou International Youth Hostel is located in the courtyards, and agreed to accompany us, a kind person.

At the reception, the girl spoke English on the first evening (we did not see her at other times). We were given a separate room, but the toilet and shower, as in the hostel in Astana, are in the corridor. You can live, only the Chinese tarred cigarettes, even hang an ax ... And the lock on the door of our room did not close - we slept, propping it up with a suitcase.

The next day we planned to go north from Urumqi, where Tianchi Lake is located (Heavenly Lake of Tianshan, Tianchi Lake, 天池). To do this, you need to get to the Northern Bus Station (Beijiao Coach Station (北郊客运站)). When I said this word in Chinese, oddly enough, they understood me. From it you need to get to the city of Fukang (Fukang, 阜康), and then by minibus from the bus station to the entrance to the national park. The second option is to take a direct express to Tianchi Lake at the stop in front of the People's Park (人民公园) or Hongshan Hotel.

It is for the second option that we chose the Ziyou International Youth Hostel in Urumqi, as it is located within walking distance from the specified People's Park and very close to the Red Hill Park (红山公园, Hong Shan Gong Yuan), where I expected to get on the third day of my stay in Xinjiang before flying to Xi'an.

The girl explained that it is better to leave for the Heavenly Lake from the Beijiao Coach Station, as the express train is for organized Chinese tourists, and will take us to souvenir shops for half a day.

Day 4. Excursion to the Heavenly Lake near Urumqi

The administrator last night showed on the map where the nearest public transport stop is located. We got to the Northern Bus Station (Bei Jiao Coach Station) by city bus (from our hostel there are routes No. 518 and No. 906, fare 1 RMB per person). It turned out that the stops in China are every 300 meters, so the distance of 5 km traveled for 40 minutes, collecting all the traffic jams and stopping 20 times at each pole.

Ticket "Urumqi - Fukang" costs 15 RMB per person. The bus leaves every 20 minutes or something. An hour and a half drive: first through the desert, then through a picturesque hilly region, admiring dozens of, apparently, metallurgical or petrochemical plants, pouring clouds of gray smoke into the sky.

At the Fukang bus station, tourists are already waiting for a minibus to the entrance to Tianchi Park (5 RMB, 15 minutes drive). We buy tickets for a terrible 215 RMB per person and for another 35 minutes we “saw” to the shore of the Heavenly Lake.

Well, what can I say, the beauty is breathtaking! Although it resembles landscapes from our Altai, only, unfortunately, cultivated.

For an additional fee of 50 RMB, you can ride a boat on calm waters or walk along the coast along the paths for free (which we did). There is a 5.8 km long trail for trekking in the mountains.

In general, the place is pleasant. If you step aside, you will be left alone in silence. But the cost of tickets (430 RMB = 3870 rubles) and the ennobled path along the coast kills all the charm.

We got back without incident according to the same scheme: minibus - international and city buses.

Day 5 travel in China. Flight from Urumqi to Xi'an

The flight to Xi'an was scheduled to leave at 15:20, so we still had a walk around Urumqi in our travel plans: we planned to visit the picturesque Red Mountain (Hun Shan) Park and visit the Museum of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, where you can see the famous Tarim mummies (Caucasoids from Southern Siberia, found them in a burial dating from the 17th century BC).

But, given that in China the time difference is +2 hours compared to Yekaterinburg, they didn’t want to get up early and wander around the morning city, they were lying in the room. We arrived at the airport by taxi (35 RMB). And here is the sixth trouble: all flights at Urumqi Diwopu International Airport (地窝堡机场) are delayed for some reason. Our airline "China Eastern Airlines" postponed the flight for an hour, half an hour, an hour and a half ... We were exhausted.

What pleased me: when the departure was delayed by 2 hours, all passengers were given a full hot meal.

In general, instead of the planned 18:35, we arrived at Xi'an Xianyang International Airport at 1:00 am. While we got our luggage, we took a taxi (130 RMB, almost an hour to go). We got to the Bell Tower Youth Hostel after midnight, broken from a long wait at the airport and a long flight (3 hours 15 minutes). They went to bed at three o'clock in the morning.

I note that at the reception the girl also spoke English, and at the entrance to the hostel there is an inscription “Zhonglou”, misleading tourists. I had to ask the taxi driver to call the administrator - it turns out "Zhonglou" means "Bell Tower" (in Russian - "bell tower" or "bell tower"). And above the front door is generally indicated "City Spring Hotel".

Photo 16-1. View of the square from the Bell Tower. On the left is part of the City Spring Hotel sign. The canopy next to the Tower is the entrance to the metro. Where to stay in Xi'an? I recommend the Bell Tower Youth Hostel. 1/125, -0.67, 8.0, 1400, 60.

Day 6 travel in China. How we missed Mount Huashan

Bell Tower Youth Hostel is located opposite the Zhonglou subway stop, on the second line. From the final station (North Railway Station, Beikezhan, North Railway Station), our high-speed train to Huashan was supposed to leave, tickets for which (round trip) were purchased in advance using the Ctrip website. Departure at 8:36 (back at 18:30).

We planned that at 7:00 we would get up, check in and take the subway to the North Railway Station (Beikezhan, North Railway Station), which is about 30 minutes away. Let's drop off our luggage in a storage room (either in Xi'an or Huashan - the exact one is at the ticket office for buying tickets to the mountain) and go lightly to the mountain. Then, in the evening at 19:09, we arrive back in Xi'an - a shuttle bus goes from the station to the airport. At 22:50 we have a flight to Bangkok.

But ... Trouble number 7: there were about 4 hours to sleep, and Katya could not close her eyes. By the ringing of the alarm clock, the temperature rose. At the family council, we decide that it is better to lie down in a hotel than to rape ourselves with a mountain and then get sick for the rest of the vacation. Xi'an-Huashan-Xi'an High Speed ​​Train Tickets Burnt (180 RMB)…

We go out for a walk during the day. We did not go to the Belfry - 45 RMB is a ticket per tourist. We have already climbed such towers many times in our previous trips to China.

Somewhere very close to the Bell Tower is a segment of the Great Wall of China, where you can climb, rent a bike and ride right on top, admiring the combination of antiquity and modernity. But there was no strength to get there either (although the distance to the South entrance of the Wall from the Belfry is 10 minutes walk, according to the guidebook). We wandered around, ate delicious dumplings in a cafe and slept off. The room at Bell Tower Youth Hostel is simply royal compared to our previous rooms in Astana, Turpan and Urumqi. I would say that this is a three star hotel.

In Xi'an, it is already very much felt that the situation is not as alarming as in the XUAR, where police posts are at every step, red flags dazzle in the eyes. And the city is much richer and more well-groomed than Urumqi.

I note that Xi'an among Russian tourists is known not only for Mount Huashan. The city is 3000 years old, of which 1100 years it was the capital of ancient kingdoms. It was the eastern outpost of the Great Silk Road and is known throughout the world for its Terracotta Army (it is located 37 km from the city, you can get there, for example, from the Northern Railway Station by shuttle, which runs from 8:00 to 16:00). A reminder of the Terracotta Army in Xi'an can be found at every turn.

In the evening we took another walk around the square near the Belfry. I unfolded my tripod and took a couple of shots of the city at night, and we took the subway (3 RMB per person ticket price) to the North Railway Station. From there for 25 RMB per tourist - by bus to the airport.

This time there were no adventures: the low-cost airline Air Asia flew to Bangkok on time.

Although ... there was trouble number 8, due to which gray hair almost increased on the head: at passport control, the border guard noticed a Turkish stamp in his wife's passport and called an officer of state security and intelligence of the People's Republic of China ... But I will talk about this in a separate chapter below.

Days 7 to 15 travel in China and Thailand

From China, we flew to Thailand at the Don Mueang Domestic Airport (DMK), next to which the Montri Resort Donmuang Bangkok hotel was booked.

You have no idea how much we missed this humid air, the concerts of tropical insects outside the window, the specific smell of Thailand! At 2 am we walked from the hotel to the 7/11 Convenience Store (a chain of 7-Eleven convenience stores that are found on every corner across the country) and on the way almost trampled the frogs that got out onto the road. I walked and thought: “God, why did we go to this China. I love, I love Thailand so much! There were thoughts of renting a car again and driving through the national parks in the northeast!”

We spent all these days of rest in the resort of Pattaya, either swimming on the island of Koh Larn (Koh Larn), or on excursions (Khao Kheo open zoo, an observation deck at the Big Buddha).

Here, however, three more troubles happened: the first - after diving, the ear ached (it took a couple of days for treatment, not the most pleasant sensations for a vacation); the second - because of the funeral ceremony of King Rama IX, they did not get to the Bangkok Aquarium and the KAAN Show; the third - he unsuccessfully put his telephoto lens on a concrete bench in the Khao Kheo Zoo, and because of this the polarizing filter cracked (loss of 5,000 rubles). Another unfortunate incident happened on the island of Koh Lan: on Monkey Beach, I climbed up to photograph a flock of monkeys on the mountain, but broke loose and skinned my legs and arms to blood. Be careful!

On the evening of October 28, they boarded a bus to Suvarnabhumi Airport (BKK) at Pattaya South Bus Station, from where they flew to Dubai at 2:55 a.m. on a Flydubai low-cost flight. Here luck: for 30 rows of seats - only 30 passengers. Therefore, during the entire flight (7 hours 10 minutes), everyone could take 3 seats and sleep all night lying down.

On the afternoon of October 29 at 15:35 we successfully landed in snowy Yekaterinburg. Vacation is over. And, although it was accompanied by a huge number of unpleasant moments (compared to all previous travels in Mexico, India, China, Thailand, Turkey, the Philippines and Sri Lanka), we were satisfied. And casually looked at the Middle Kingdom, and ate seafood in Thailand, and managed to soak tired little bodies in the waters of the Gulf of Thailand. Now we can only dream about it...

To the attention of tourists going to Thailand!!! Since November 2017, a fine of 3,000 rubles has been introduced throughout the country.USD (or 1 year in prison) for smoking on the beaches. The same punishment awaits those who will feed the fish in the sea (look for news reports - many Russians have suffered because of this offense).

4. What sights could be seen on this route through China

For those tourists who, perhaps, will travel along a similar route in China, I will leave tips about interesting places.

Firstly, I think that the Kuche Grand Canyon in Kuqa County is a must visit if you fly to Urumqi. Next to it there is also a complex of Buddhist caves.

Secondly, if you take a high-speed train in Turpan, then in 6-7 hours you can reach Zhangye Station in Gansu Province. The famous Zhangye Danxia National Geological Park (张掖丹霞国家地质公园) is located here. I have never seen such colorful mountains in my life!

After another 600 km - Yellow River Stone Forest National Park (景泰黃河石林). And 400 km away is another magnificent Kanbula National Forest Park (坎布拉国家森林公园), which is somewhat similar to the Monument Valley in the USA.

In Xi'an, I mentioned the Terracotta Army, which we didn't intend to see. But now, I bite my elbows that when drawing up a route in China, I forgot about the Yuntaishan National Park (Yuntaishan World Geopark, 云 台山世界地质公园) - Yuntai Mountain is located 400 km from Huashan. An amazing canyon in red rocks - in a review of a trip to

In Turfan, on the way to the Tuyuk-Mazar valley, there is another settlement: Gaochang (Ancient City of Gaochang (Kharakhoja), 高昌). Archaeologists of Tsarist Russia, who explored East Turkestan, called it Idikut-Shari. The age of the ruins of this ancient city and history are approximately the same as those of the ancient settlement Jiaohe (Yar-hoto) that we visited. In the reports of tourists, they met the opinion that it is more interesting in Jiaohe, in others - in Gaochang. Due to time constraints, we chose the first one. We didn’t have time to visit both attractions at the same time, and I don’t think that this makes sense.

Shanshan (Shanshan Xian, in Chinese: 鄯善县, in Uighur: Pichan, پىچان ناھىيىسى) is located 97 kilometers from Turpan, surrounded on all sides by the dunes of the Kumtag desert. The Kumtag Desert Scenic Area National Park (库木塔格沙漠公园) is located here. According to the reports, the place is interesting, but photographers will be interested if they arrive at dawn or at sunset. We decided not to go here, but to go to Lake Tianchi - and did not regret it, since we saw the desert and climbing the mountain in the area of ​​​​the Bezeklik caves.

Well, in general, in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, and throughout China, one of the most beautiful places is the Karakorum Highway (Godao 314, G314, 314国道), connecting China and Pakistan. Only now, it seems, in the last year this road was closed to foreign tourists.

Video. Of course, I would not climb this Path of Fear in Huashan Park. But I would like to watch the daredevils from the side.

5. What I photographed on a trip to China and Thailand

This information is for new readers of the site. A description of the set of my photographic equipment is in the article with a review of the Lowepro Flipside 400 AW photo backpack: 1) Nikon D610 full-frame camera; 2) universal zoom lens Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8; 3) Samyang 14mm f/2.8 ultra wide-angle lens; 4) Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8 telephoto lens; 5) extender Nikon TC-14E ​​II; 6) HOYA HD Circular-PL polarizing filter; 7) Sirui T-2204X carbon tripod with G20KX head.

On this trip to China, another trouble happened to me, the signs of which appeared even during my vacation in Goa in India: I suddenly stopped seeing the frame. More precisely, I look into the viewfinder and understand that the subject that I am going to photograph is weak, but I don’t know how to shoot a strong one, therefore I don’t photograph. As a result, I brought only 1200 shots from the trip, while usually after a vacation I “rake” 2500-2900 shots. It got to the point that in Pattaya I had to force myself to shoot in order to collect content for the report!

Therefore, my friends, do not scold for crooked pictures. I have a creative block. Thanks to my wife Ekaterina, who supports me in everything and shoots with my phone: all the photos on the Asus ZenFone smartphone in this report are the result of her work.

6. Safety in China. How dangerous is it for Russians to travel around the country

In a review of a trip to China in March 2014, I wrote that while traveling in this country, we did not experience any anxiety in terms of crime or terrorism. As the saying goes: "Blessed is he who believes, he is warm in the world" ...

Today I will say that the level of danger in China for tourists is approximately equal to the European one. So, in China there are natural dangers: annual typhoons and floods, earthquakes often occur in mountainous regions. In August this year, a 7-magnitude earthquake in Sichuan Province killed 19 people and injured 247, including 5 tourists in the famous Jiuzhaigou Natural Reserve (九寨沟)…

There is practically no threat to the life of travelers from crime in China. Although passports, money and telephones are often stolen. There are tricks: a pretty girl invites you to a cafe to drink tea and practice English, and then you have to pay, and it costs a tidy sum. There are situations when taxi drivers or sellers deftly exchange a 100 yuan bill for a fake one, and then they don’t accept it from you (I even read the recommendation to serve it crumpled so that the scammer does not have time to make a substitution).

But with terrorism, everything is the same as in Europe: Islamic radicals drive trucks into crowds of people, cut them with knives. So in 2014, 31 people were killed at the Kunming railway station by Islamist knives (now, by the way, in Xinjiang, the Chinese government requires that all knives have a special QR code with owner identification).

It should be clarified here that most of the problems are related to terrorism in the XUAR, the capital of which is Urumqi, which we traveled around for almost a week.

The Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region was officially established in 1955. It is inhabited by 47 nationalities (Uigurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, Uzbeks and Hans). In the past, this region was called East Turkestan. It has been under the influence of China for a long time (“Xinjiang” in translation means “new border”, so named after the conquest of the Uighur Khaganates in the west of the country by the Chinese), but never stopped rebelling and rebelling.

The Uighurs are a Turkic people professing Islam (Sunnis), akin to Turks and Uzbeks. Previously, in various TV programs about travels to China, one could see men in striped Central Asian robes, skullcaps and long beards. After the uprising in 2009, when hundreds of Han people were killed, the Communist Party is very hard on them: wiretapping, espionage, a ban on wearing beards (according to reports on the Web - up to 5 years in prison), a ban on visiting mosques by children under 18, they are forced to put a program on their smartphones, monitoring all communications (if removed - a prison and a camp for political re-education and brainwashing), they try to dilute the Uighurs with Hans (now there are less than 45% of Uighurs in the province).

In parallel, the Chinese authorities are investing billions of yuan in infrastructure development (building roads and bridges, factories, schools, universities, etc.). But the Uyghurs do not want to learn Chinese, and accordingly, they cannot get a normal job - they live poorer. Dissatisfaction with China is growing, young people are becoming radical and falling under the influence of ISIS (a terrorist organization banned in Russia). Several thousand people from XUAR are fighting on the side of terrorist groups in Syria, and terrorist attacks are constantly being committed in the region itself and throughout the country. In response, the Uyghurs receive violence from the authorities. A vicious circle… It is very similar to our situation “stop feeding the Caucasus”.

This autumn, the Communist Party of China invited several tens of thousands of people from the central regions to XUAR for government positions (policemen, teachers, doctors and officials) with high salaries. Han pressure intensifies.

If anyone does not know, a Chinese is not a nationality, but an analogue of the definition of "Russian" or "Soviet people." The titular nation in China is called "Han" or "Han" (92% of the population). Also, about 10 million Hui live in China - the same Han who speak Chinese, but profess Islam of the Hanafi persuasion. It is clear that the Uighurs differ significantly from the Han in appearance, language, and culture. It is not easy to get along with them in peace and harmony.

In the West, they believe that the Chinese government is hiding data on terrorist attacks in the country. Foreign media journalists are not accredited to cover such events. Information leaks to the press by accident.

Officially, the last terrorist attack took place in XUAR on December 28, 2016, when a truck crashed into an administrative building (1 person died). In September 2016, 16 miners were killed in a militant attack on a mine in Aksu prefecture.

But, apparently, the problem is very acute. For 4 days in Xinjiang, we went through police inspection about 40 times: they punched our passports, took fingerprints and even scanned the retina. During trips from Urumqi to Turpan and Fukang, there are stationary police posts on the highway. All passengers get off the bus and go through a metal detector with a passport. To get to the high-speed train station in Turpan, you need to go through four security posts with a full inspection.

In Urumqi predominantly live Hans, in Turfan - Uyghurs. So, in the capital of the XUAR, there are a dime a dozen policemen. And wow… In Turfan you can’t stay out of sight of the police: in the literal sense, they stand at every intersection, every five minutes a patrol car or an armored personnel carrier with a machine gun passes by… Guards with shields and Kevlar helmets were on duty at the Dap Youth Hostel .

The distance from Turfan to the village of Tuyuk-Mazar is about 50 km. By the time we got to it, we had passed inspection at the checkpoints 4 times (we showed our passport, the driver opened the hood, trunk and glove box).

I understand that this story sounds rather ominous, but in practice, life goes on as usual. All the people that we met in any region of China were friendly and complacent. There is no anxiety anywhere. And, for comparison, in China, the last serious terrorist attack was two years ago. Three of them happened in Russia in 2017: in St. Petersburg and Surgut they were organized by Islamic radicals, in Yekaterinburg by Christian fundamentalists…

Note. For those guests of the site who came to this page for the first time, I will post information about my other stories about traveling around China on my own.

In the "Self-driven trips" section in the menu above, you can find reviews of holidays in China in 2011 and 2014. On the map with the route description above, you can see the points marked with red and yellow circles.

In 2011, we flew to Beijing, where we visited the Emperor's Summer Palace (The Summer Palace,頤和園 ), with the park and Yiheyuan, went to Wangfujing Pedestrian Street. We also devoted one day to a trip to the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall of China. Then we flew by plane to Guilin, from where we got to the town of Yangshuo, famous for its unearthly hilly landscapes.

Here we rafted down the Li River on a "bamboo" raft, rode bicycles and mopeds through breathtaking hilly landscapes. Then, on the train "Guilin - Shenzhen" we got to Hong Kong, where we spent half a day and flew to the Philippines. On the way back, we spent a day in Shanghai, where we walked to the TV tower "Pearl of the East" and went to a chic aquarium.

China has a huge number of attractions. After the first trip, it was impossible to remain indifferent. In March 2014 we made our second trip to China. Now the start of the route was Shanghai, where we climbed the Oriental Pearl observation deck (low clouds interfered with the first visit), walked along the Bund,外灘 ), swept through the tunnel under the Huangpu River and walked around Yuyuan Park (Yuyuan,豫园 . We flew by plane to Zhangjiajie National Park and spent a day and a half in the famous Avatar Mountains.

Then we took a bus to the ancient city of Fenghuang. From it - by train to the village of Chengyang, which attracts tourists with its Wind and Rain Bridges. Next - a two-day tour of the Longji rice terraces in Dazhai village and a trip to Guilin. This time we climbed into the Korona cave (Crown cave), located 30 km from the regional center. On this excursion, we got lost and were rescued by Chinese tourists who invited us to a boat sailing along the Lijiang River (in 2011, we rafted down it on a "bamboo" raft).

If you are preparing your trip to China, I advise you to look through these reports and read the comments - I tried to give useful information for travelers by leaving reviews (or other tourists wrote "news from the fields"). For example, in the comments to the Morning in Fenghuang report, I talked about Mount Sanqingshan National Park,三清山 i) and Wuyishan (Wuyishan National Nature Reserve,武夷山 ) located between Shanghai and Guangzhou.

7. Visa to China for Russians. What problems can tourists have if they have a Turkish stamp in their passport

Residents of Yekaterinburg are lucky: in our city there is a consulate of China (address: Tchaikovsky St., 45). Therefore, getting a visa is as easy as shelling pears: fill out a questionnaire, print out a photo (see the requirements for pictures on the consulate website - they have a non-standard size, unlike visas from other countries), take with you the reservation of air tickets along the route and hotels (the names of both tourists must be indicated ) and go to the appointment.

Documents are accepted and passports with visas are issued on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays from 9:30 to 12:00. You will have to wait outside in a queue. So advice: dress warmly.

Tariffs for Chinese visas for Russians can be found on the website of the consulate. Since July 2016, the fee has been 3,300 rubles for a single entry, 6,600 rubles for a double entry, and 9,900 rubles for a multiple entry. After accepting the documents, you will be given a receipt, which must be paid STRICTLY ON THIS DAY through Sberbank, otherwise the amount will not be credited and will not be returned!

Compared to 2011 and 2014, the requirements for documents submitted for a Chinese visa have become tougher: you must provide exactly the reservations of air tickets and hotels with the indicated names of tourists. Accordingly, since cheap tickets are now non-refundable, there is a chance of losing a tidy sum due to a refusal to issue a visa.

So, it's time to tell you how a trip to Turkey can become an obstacle to traveling to China. When I had already filled out the questionnaire and paid for plane tickets from Yekaterinburg to Urumqi, from Urumqi to Xi'an and further to Bangkok, on one of the forums I read a question from one of the travelers about how the Chinese consular service treats the presence of Turkish stamps in the passport.

"Hm. Is this a problem? ”I thought, and got into Google to see what they write in the news. Blimey! Full of messages like the following: “During the G20 summit in Hangzhou from August 18 to October 1, 2016, China does not want to issue visas for Russians who visited Turkey, as well as Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Syria and Kazakhstan. In addition, the 72-hour visa-free transit through Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou has been cancelled.”

These news relate to last year, but questions are still being asked on the forums. I'm trying to call the Chinese Consulate in Yekaterinburg - they don't pick up the phone. I decide to consult a Chinese visa agency.

- Hello! I heard about the fact that tourists who have traveled to Turkey may have problems visiting China. Is it true?

— Mmm… how long were you in Turkey?

We rented a car and drove around the country for two weeks.

Act one. Together with his wife in the morning came to the consulate. We submit documents. The employee very carefully flips through the pages of the passport and finds Turkish stamps:

— Were you in Turkey in 2016?

- Yes. We rested.

— What did you do in Turkey?

“I told you, we went there on vacation.

Thoughtfully silent, studying the stamps. Asks:

Why did you decide to go to Turkey?

- We traveled. Most Russians spend their holidays in this country.

- Have you been to Turkey.

- Yes, it is, we rested there ...

In general, the same questions were asked 10 times, after which the documents were accepted. Visa ready in a week.

Act two. After 7 days I come to pick up a visa. They do not remember my Turkish stamp, they issue passports. In the next window, a young man tries to submit a questionnaire, but the employee does not accept it:

— Were you born in Chechnya?

- Yes. But I am Russian by nationality and have been living in Tver for 15 years.

— That is, you used to live in the Caucasus?

— Yes, but I am not a Chechen and I live in Tver.

— But you were born in Chechnya?

— Yes, but I am Russian, and Chechnya is Russia.

— But, if you live in Tver, why are you applying for a Chinese visa in Yekaterinburg, you must go to the Moscow consulate.

— I'm traveling in Russia. I'm going to fly from Yekaterinburg to China.

- I will not accept documents from you. You must apply for a visa in Moscow ...

It seemed to me that the guy had already been denied a visa by the Moscow consulate because of his place of birth, and he decided to try his luck in the Urals. Bad luck.

By the way, a visa can be issued in Moscow, Yekaterinburg, St. Petersburg, Khabarovsk and Yakutsk. And one more thing: you can stay in Hong Kong for 14 days without a visa (for Russian citizens), and if more, you need to apply for a regular Chinese visa at the Chinese consulate.

Act three. Dramatic. Although, during our trip to XUAR, our passports were checked countless times, no one paid attention to the Turkish stamp. I think this is due to the fact that the Chinese police cannot read the Latin alphabet. The checklist looked like this:

— Passport, please.

- Here, take it.

Writes down the number, scans.

- Thanks.

- And thank you.

- Where are you from? America?

Mmmm, Russia...

- Russia? - an incomprehensible look.

— Russia? It is clear that he did not understand.

— Russia. Moscow. Putin.

- Putin? .. - he laughs and it is clear that this surname does not tell him anything.

And so, we arrived at Xi'an airport, checked in for a flight to Bangkok, checked in our luggage and went through passport control. They let me through without a problem. They try to ask my wife about something, but she hardly speaks English.

— Sir, are you looking for a Chinese visa? - I ask the border guard, - She is on the 22nd page.

“Mister, step back 3 meters,” he cuts me off, continuing to interrogate his wife.

Then, since nothing could be obtained from his wife, he calls me, checks my passport and also sees a certificate of visiting Turkey.

- Have you been to Turkey?

Yes, rest...

Then the cycle of stupid questions is repeated, as in the consulate in Yekaterinburg, after which the border guard calls the senior shift. He takes the passports, and together we go to his office. Another interrogation. Calls, apparently, an officer of the Ministry of State Security of the PRC. That polite, but steely and penetrating look, as in films about the NKVD and Soviet soldiers during interrogations:

— Do you have friends in Turkey?

— No, we rested there.

Are you family?

Yes, we are a family.

— Where did you get your Chinese visa?

- We received it at the consulate of Yekaterinburg. The place of issue is written on it in hieroglyphs.

Imagine, it turns out that hieroglyphs can accurately convey the sound of the name of our city! He looked carefully and said:

- Yekaterinburg. Where is it?

- It's in the Urals. Between Europe and Asia.

- Clear. What did you do in Turkey? Who took you there?

In general, during these half an hour, my wife had a runny nose, and I was pretty worried and turned a little gray, because they let us go only 5 minutes before boarding the flight, after we had broken through our system. For those who have visited Turkey and are now going to China, I advise you to change your passport. Or at least arrive at the airport early to reduce the chances of losing your ticket and spending a lot of money on buying a new one.

Probably, if the police had seen these Turkish stamps somewhere in the mountains of Turfan, we would have been locked up in a Chinese prison.

I thought that such attention to tourists who have visited Turkey is due to the fact that several thousand Uyghurs are fighting on the side of ISIS (it seems that after Russia, XUAR is the main supplier of militants for the terrorists of this banned organization). Now I read the news and realized that this is also due to the fact that 300,000 Uyghurs live in the Republic of Turkey, and Recep Tayyip Erdogan periodically stands up for them when another repressive law is issued in China. According to Arab media reports, the Uighurs cross the border with Syria and settle in the border areas, fighting on the side of Jabhat al-Nusra and Daesh (banned in Russia). And they are supported in this by Turkish intelligence (MIT - Millî İstihbarat Teşkilatı).

The Chinese believe that Turkey dreams of uniting the entire "Turkic world" under its banners (hello to the "Russian world" and Russia's support for separatists in neighboring states). In general, the question is complex, and the Russians have a chance to fall under the wheel of this military-political machine...

8. How to buy train tickets in China

In my travel reports to China in November 2011 and March 2014, I wrote that it would not be possible to purchase tickets in advance. But everything flows, everything changes. High technologies are sweeping the planet. This time, I paid for the transfers by high-speed rail from Turpan to Urumqi and from Xi'an to Huashan (and back) in advance from Russia. And now I want to give a little instruction for tourists.

1. We open the Ctrip website (you can TravelChinaGuide) and in the "Trains" section we look at the schedule and cost in the desired direction.
2. We book a ticket and pay for it.
3. We receive a voucher by mail (in the photo - a white printout under the tickets), where the reservation number (A) is indicated.
4. At any railway station in China, we go to the ticket office and show this voucher along with the passport. We are given a real ticket. You can immediately get all travel documents for the entire route at one ticket office.

So buying tickets is convenient, but expensive. For example, if the fare on the high-speed train "Huashan - Xi'an" is 54.5 RMB, the Ctrip service fee is 20 RMB, that is, 37%. Although, perhaps, at long distances, everything is not so bad. So, a seat in a second-class carriage of the Beijing-Zhangjiajie train costs 407 RMB, and the Ctrip fee is 40 RMB, that is, 10%.

Be that as it may, for travelers planning in advance a complex travel route in China, this opportunity to buy a train ticket in advance can come in handy. In the photo of the tickets above:

• "F" - train number,
• "B" - car number "02" and a place inside "03C",
• "E" is the passenger's passport number.

Also in the picture you see two tickets for intercity buses in China. We did not buy them in advance, we took them at the box office before departure.

• “C” is the license plate number of the bus, knowing it, it is easy to find your own on the platform of the bus station.
• "G" is the departure time.
• "D" - a place in the cabin.

On the ticket on the left, they even tried to write “Ekaterina” in Latin letters. They are also sold upon presentation of a passport.

9. China's economy compared to Russia's

I confess that during this trip to China, the veil fell from my eyes, and I realized that my political convictions were shaken, that the world cannot be black and white, there are halftones. Previously, I was not enthusiastic about the USSR, I believed that the socialist planned economy obviously loses to the capitalist way of life. Although, at work, I often have to communicate with Germans, Spaniards, Swiss, and I often heard from them the opinion that there was a lot of sound, or at least fair, in the ideas of socialism promoted in the USSR. Well, the Soviet Union sank into oblivion, China took over the baton of building socialism and showed that the economy can be powerful even under communist rule.

In 1997, at the XV Congress of the Communist Party of the People's Republic of China, a new official ideology was adopted on the construction of socialism with Chinese characteristics. It is based on two principles:

1. All transformations in the state should be carried out in the interests of the majority of citizens, who should benefit from this.
2. For the vast majority of Chinese people, the price of reforms should be acceptable.

Having traveled for the third time in China, I can say that Russia has fundamentally lagged behind in its development for about these 20 years, that the Chinese are building their own specific socialism. For example, the infrastructure is striking: hundreds of new airports have been built in the country, there is a network of high-speed railways (as of 2017, according to Wikipedia - 22,000 km, where the speed of trains is 250-350 km/h), and there are 131,000 km motorways with a speed limit of 120 km/h. For comparison, in Russia: high-speed railways - 0 km (the Moscow-Kazan section is being designed), highways - 816 km, modern airports - I don’t know exactly, about 8.

Even if tomorrow we use the entire budget and all our efforts to build roads, we will build them for the same 20 years ... And China will already have an advantage (it is: GDP growth in our country is 0.5%, in China - 6% in year): in 20 years, our economy will grow by 9.9%, the Chinese at this rate - by 300%. This is in nominal terms, but if we take into account inflation of 2.8% this year in the Russian Federation, then our economy is not growing, but falling by 2.3% per year ...

Where did I see the advantages of socialism? Well, let's compare how decisions are made. Let's say China produced oil worth 1 billion USD. All 100% of the profits went to the state. Officials decide how to spend everything: "Let's build a road, schools, a hospital, a university, factories and research institutes in that godforsaken town of Bingjiao." People will get education, jobs, medical care, leisure. The standard of living is rising, the economy is developing.

Now let's take Russia. I don’t know what specific MET rate we have - let it be 20%. Thus, out of the same 1 billion, the state receives only 0.2 billion USD to the budget. The remaining 0.8 billion is received by the oligarch. Theoretically, he could invest them in the construction of roads, hospitals, research institutes and factories, say, the town of Krasnoufimsk in the Sverdlovsk region. But in practice, he decides: "Isn't it better to buy me a yacht or a football club abroad?"

What happens next. The Chinese city of Bingjiao manufactures the product, easily competes with it in the market, because the best personnel come here due to good infrastructure, transport accessibility makes it possible to ship goods inexpensively throughout the country and even abroad.

Active, young workers are fleeing from our Krasnoufimsk due to disorder, transport inaccessibility makes the cost of any goods sky-high.

What would happen if a high-speed highway was built from Yekaterinburg to Moscow, as in China, where tunnels were dug through the mountains, bridges were laid across the gorges so that the roadbed was strictly horizontal throughout the journey - the minimum speed is 120 km / h, and also launched a high-speed train with a stop in Krasnoufimsk? The average speed of trucks increases from 60 to 100 km/h, which significantly reduces fuel costs (also, the speed of delivery increases - less driver's labor costs). The transport component in goods produced in Krasnoufimsk is leveled out. The ability to travel by high-speed train from Yekaterinburg to the regional center, located 230 km from the regional center, in 30 minutes, allows you to attract highly qualified personnel from the regional center ...

Yes ... daydreaming. How to catch up with China? In the usual way, developing standard branches and industry, I think it is impossible, because, as I said, China is decades ahead in this direction. We need a technological revolution, non-standard approaches.

Take Yakutsk. It is located at the Pole of Cold on the outskirts of the world. Neither a high-speed train nor a motorway will save him: whatever is produced will be incredibly expensive due to the remoteness. And if we declare it a zone where human cloning is allowed? Provide benefits and attract the world's stem cell scientists to become the world's center for artificial organ cultivation and transplant operations? Yes, rich people from all over the planet will flock here and spend money with us! And 1000 USD for air tickets - they won’t even notice such expenses.

Well... while our government is praying for oil prices, such steps are not to be expected from it... For reference: one tank of oil (60 tons) costs as much as 20 high-tech iPhone 10 toy phones.

OK. Let's criticize China now. Whatever the political situation in our country, we have more air of freedom than our neighbor. For those who don't know, a social rating system is being built in China: a citizen receives an identification number, and a computer automatically calculates points. If you violate traffic rules, do not pay your loans on time, play computer games and spend time in beer bars, criticize the government, you will get penalty points. You have gone beyond the limit - you cannot get a job as an official, receive benefits, you are forbidden to sell air tickets or train tickets in a compartment on a night train, you cannot settle in hotels or take your children to an expensive school. Punitive measures also apply to relatives. Your life is turning into a nightmare.

10. Food in China

What will you have to eat on a trip to China? Hmm, of course, the Chinese only eat Doshirak noodles!

Joke! Even in a review about a vacation in India, where I complained that sometimes my wife and I went to bed hungry, just not to eat that muck, I noted that in China you can not look at the menu. Whatever you order, everything will be delicious! Yes, as a side dish, you will mainly have to eat rice or rice noodles. But what delicious meat! Seaweed! Mushrooms! And there are many other substances that you don't even know what they are. Mmm!

I can’t single out a special name for the dishes, since I had to order by poking my finger into a neighbor’s plate. It was especially funny when you come to a cafe, want to order something to eat, and with a serious look they bring you a menu only in Chinese characters and wait for your order. Well, dumplings in China are very, very, very tasty. Be sure to try.

Another piece of advice, do not go to the canteens “a la fast food” that appear in big cities. The furniture is better there, but the food is noticeably worse, just like in Russian fast food establishments.

It is much tastier to eat in small eateries, where food is cooked with soul, especially for you.

11. Tips for travelers who are planning a trip to China on their own

The first recommendation: you need to start planning by checking if there is any public holiday in the PRC on your vacation days. If there is a long weekend in China at this time, a billion people go to their small homeland or on tourist trips. There are crowds on excursions, there are no places in hotels, tickets for trains and planes are sold out. It's better to reschedule the trip.

The second tip: install the Maps.me application on your smartphone and download maps of China. Works without an Internet connection. It is convenient to navigate when traveling by public transport within the country. It was with the help of Maps.me that we understood where to get off when we traveled around Urumqi on city buses. It is better to add the coordinates of attractions, hotels, restaurants and other necessary places to the "Favorites" in advance.

The third recommendation: before traveling to China, install the Google Translate application and download an English-Chinese dictionary (it does not translate very correctly from Russian). It also works without an internet connection. This application helped us a lot when buying subway tickets, or when passers-by needed to clarify something.

Fourth advice: make a table with the names and addresses (in Latin and hieroglyphs), as well as phone numbers of all hotels along the route of your trip to China. Print this information in very large print (I used 40) so that at dusk the Chinese can read the scribbles of the "Chinese letter". We poked this printout to taxi drivers. In Xi'an, the driver had to call the hostel to find his way.

Fifth recommendation: not all ATMs in China dispense cash with Russian debit cards. We took three cards with us (Gazprombank, Raiffeisen, and VTB24). Print out the names and logos of Chinese banks that work with Russian cards in advance to make it easier to find them on the street (on the forums they write that you can definitely withdraw cash from China Construction Bank, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) ATMs). We were only able to withdraw yuan once from the fourth - I don't know if this is due to our cards or Chinese ATMs.

Sixth tip: print out copies of passports, medical insurance policy, copies of air and railway tickets, hotel reservation vouchers, a Chinese-Russian phrasebook (in case the phone sits down) and other important documents. Send copies to your personal e-mail address to have access in case of loss. Just keep in mind that many sites are blocked in China. And, apparently, in different regions in different ways. So, in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Mail.ru, Yandex, Google, Facebook, VKontakte did not work for us. And when we got to Xi'an, Yandex and Mail were already functioning normally.

12. Conclusion to the review of the trip to China

With this, I conclude the first chapter of the report on adventures in China. We looked at a map with a travel itinerary, discussed security issues and problems that arise with a Turkish stamp, learned how to get a Chinese visa for Russians and how to buy train tickets, how to prepare for a vacation.

I advise you to bookmark the report so as not to lose it, because in the future I plan to tell in detail (show photos) about excursions in Turfan, about a trip to Heavenly Lake in Fukan, about how to get to Huashan from Xi'an. See you and happy travels!

I want to tell you how much work it takes to write such reports. I don't know how to write texts on a computer, so I write them by hand first. This review of a trip to China for the third time is a record blog article: 110 sheets of A4 handwritten text came out. I wrote for 4 evenings, on the tips of my fingers - calluses from a ballpoint pen.

If I type text in the editor, it will take forever. Therefore, I act differently: I record audio and send it to a girl in Volgograd. The recording was 2 hours 06 minutes long.

My assistant is on maternity leave, she cannot type text during the day - she typed it for 6 nights when the child is sleeping. Then, for 3 hours, I did proofreading and editing, preparing the text for publication.

Thanks in advance and good luck on your travels!

Brief information about the country

Foundation date

Official language

Chinese

Form of government

socialist republic

Territory

9,596,960 km² (3rd in the world)

Population

1 430 075 000 people (1st in the world)

Timezone

Largest cities

Shanghai, Beijing, Chongqing, Tianjin, Guangzhou

$14.625 trillion (2nd in the world)

Internet domain

Telephone code

Or Zhong Guo (Zhōngguó), as the Chinese themselves call it, is one of the most amazing and mysterious countries in the world. The birthplace of paper and printing, gunpowder and compass, silk, porcelain and many other useful inventions and discoveries, it invariably attracts the attention of historians, explorers and travelers. Located in the southeast of the Asian continent and with its outlines resembling a huge bird soaring in the sky, modern China is the heir to a great civilization, the annals of which are about five thousand years old.

Video: China

Basic moments

Despite a rich historical past, a rather diverse ethno-cultural composition of the population and the existence of national-territorial autonomies, the People's Republic of China is de facto a unitary state with a rigid system of government and a clearly built vertical of power, the core of which has been the Communist Party since 1949.

The PRC has a vast territory of 9,596,960 sq. km, including the island of Taiwan, which is not controlled by the central government, and the small islands adjacent to it. According to this indicator, China is second only to Russia and Canada. In terms of population - 1,430,075,000 people (2018 data) - it occupies the first line of the world ranking.

Far and mysterious China is also called the Celestial Empire. The ancient Chinese considered their country the only one in the world that was patronized by heaven, and the rulers were revered as "sons of heaven." Or, perhaps, such a poetic name was inspired by the highest mountain system of the planet located here - the Himalayas? It's hard to say for sure. But one thing is certain: every tourist who comes here will definitely become a little Chinese, because it is simply impossible not to feel the local culture, the original customs of the ancient people, its culinary traditions and no less vibrant modernity!

Cities of China

All cities in China

Nature

The tranquility and grandeur of Tibet, the majestic Himalayas, the unique landscapes of Gansu Province, the Gobi Desert in the north and the warm seas in the eastern part of the country - all this is China. The local nature seems to be specially created so that the traveler immediately forgets about the daily bustle and rests from the noise of megacities, gaining vivid and unforgettable impressions.

The inaccessibility of many areas, in particular, the Tibetan Plateau, made it possible to preserve the flora and fauna in their original form. In the mountains near the peaks, the vegetation is rather sparse, and at their foothills there are meadows with lush grass, where herds of yaks graze. The population uses them as a draft force when plowing small land. Other animals that can survive in such conditions also live here: the orongo antelope, the Himalayan bear and the kiang. There are also hare, bobak, red wolf, brown bear and lynx. The great rivers of China and neighboring countries - the Yangtze, the Yellow River, the Indus, the Salween, the Brahmaputra, the Mekong - originate in the mountains of Tibet. Thanks to the snowy peaks, they fill their waters and give long-awaited moisture to animals and plants.

The largest monumental building in Tibet, another autonomous region of China, is the Potala Palace. It is located 130 meters above the valley of the city of Lhasa, and its construction began in 1645. Before the Chinese invasion of Tibet in 1959, the palace was the official residence of the Dalai Lama.

If you visit the northeastern province of Guangxi, then an unforgettable moment of your stay will be a cruise on the Li River. The landscape here is adorned with amazing hills, steep cliffs, incredible caves, bamboo groves and villages.

At the foot of Nanshan Mountain, which is 40 km west of the city of Sanya (this is the south of Hainan Island), there is the Nanshan Buddhism Center - the largest in Asia. It was opened in 1997, its area is 50 sq. m. In addition to restoring the ancient Buddhist temple, the creators of the center laid out an impressive landscape park here.

All sights of China

Kitchen

The Chinese attach great importance to food, its usefulness and taste. For them, eating is not just a vital necessity, but a kind of ritual, in which philosophical meaning is invested. Chefs in China have long been equated with prime ministers. Even the ancient thinker and philosopher of China Confucius compared a well-prepared dish with a successful state in which everyone is in his place.

The vast territory of China is divided into provinces. Each of them has its own nature and way of life, therefore gastronomic preferences are different.

In the north of the country, the main ingredient in dishes is noodles. It is fried, boiled, baked.

In the south of China, not a single dish is complete without rice. Cakes are made from it, which are poured with soy sauce, and even bread is baked. Desserts are also prepared from this main national product. The most famous cuisine traditions are Cantonese, Sichuan, Shandong and Jiangsu cuisine. In fact, there are many more. For example, in Tibet, the basis of the entire diet is not rice or noodles, but barley. Based on this cereal, dough for noodles or dumplings is made. Barley beer from local brewers has a sweet-spicy taste.

The province of Guangzhou, in southern China, is famous for its wide variety of meat dishes. Almost any meat is cooked here, even snakes and snails. The poetic names of unfamiliar dishes most often confuse a traveler inexperienced in Chinese delights. Having familiarized yourself with the ingredients of the dish, you can safely enjoy its taste without worrying about the contents of the plate. For lovers of spicy dishes, the masterpieces of the culinary art of Cantonese cuisine may seem insipid.

It is here that light dishes are popular, united by the common name dim sum. They are usually small in size so that it is convenient to take with chopsticks, and are portions of desserts, fruits, vegetables and seafood. From Chinese, dim sum is translated as "order for your heart" or "heartily touch." Often, only this type of snack is served in local restaurants.

In China, you can have a good snack, because there are a lot of mouth-watering tea snacks here: for example, jiaozi (similar to dumplings) or rice dough wontons (similar to manti). And baozi, reminiscent of pies known to Russians, are steamed and filled with delicious fillings. Rolls are baked from rice and fuju. No other cuisine can boast of such refinement, because fuju is a film that forms on soy milk.

Fans of outdoor activities should immediately go to the city of Sanya, which is located on the island of Hainan. Here everyone can participate in sports rafting on mountain rivers, try diving or visit the adjacent small islands and go fishing there. Golf tourism has gained incredible popularity here, which prompted the creation of two professional golf clubs, each of which has 18-hole courses.

But the world's largest socialist country is famous not only for traditional entertainment. There are more than 20 ski resorts here. Each of them usually has 5-6 tracks designed for fast descent, as well as several lifts. The most popular ski resort in China is Yabuli. This is where the 2008 Winter Olympics were held.

Ski resort Yabuli

While on holiday in China, you can go to the world-famous traditional medicine courses for healing. Here, thanks to the unique thermal springs, many dermatological, urological and digestive system diseases can be cured. The most popular medical complex in the country is Nantian. It has 30 pools, each of which has unique water in terms of mineral composition and temperature. In the city of Sanya there are several health centers. They offer acupuncture treatments and therapeutic massages.

shopping

For many years, China has ranked first in the ranking of countries producing a wide variety of products. It is in China that you can buy everything your heart desires: from small souvenirs to jewelry, electronic equipment and an expensive car. Most of the tourists admit that they go to the Middle Kingdom not only to see local sights, but also to arrange the shopping of their dreams.

iPad, is that you?

Almost every major city has a huge shopping center, so big that it takes at least three days to visit each store. As a rule, all shopping centers are open from 10:00 to 21:00 without days off and lunch breaks. The most popular are Bailian Zhonghuan Mall, Grandview Mall and Times Square in Shanghai, Beijing Great Gold Mal in Beijing, South China Mall in Dongguan, Teem Mall and Plaza in , as well as the Hong Kong harbor, where thousands of fashion boutiques, shops, supermarkets and a number of popular entertainment venues.

In addition to things and electronics in China, you can buy hand-painted porcelain products, which are very popular among foreigners. Women will be pleased with pearl jewelry, national dresses, fans and umbrellas. For friends and acquaintances, you can bring the famous Chinese tea, magnets and symbols of this country - a fire-breathing dragon, tiger or panda. China has a very developed system of discounts. Tourists will be pleasantly surprised by low prices, discounts and frequent sales.

Transport

Until recently, China's transport system was not in the best condition, despite the country's size and population. The thing is that until the end of the 80s of the last century, China was, in fact, a backward agrarian country.

According to the estimates of the State Council of the People's Republic of China, the losses of the country's economy due to the undeveloped transport system reach 1.5% of GDP, so now all the government's forces are focused on its development.

The most popular mode of transport here is the railroad. The railway network stretched for 115 thousand kilometers. China has already outstripped Russia in this indicator and is second only to the United States.

The first metro line was launched in 1965. To date, the subway is available in 22 cities of the country. The total length of metro lines is about 2.5 thousand kilometers. According to government plans, in the near future the number of cities with their own subways will reach 58.

China has over 2000 ports. The country's water transport network transports 1.5 trillion tons of cargo and 6.5 trillion passengers.

China's air transport has about 500 airports, and the total number of aircraft reaches 2,000.

Connection

Mobile communication in China is new for Russians, since until recently the local information technology market was closed to tourists, but now it is gradually opening up. The number of operators is 3, and it was they who distributed the “spheres of influence” across the country.

The largest mobile operator is China Mobile, which owns 66 percent of the total market share. The remaining two places were distributed as follows: China Unicom (20%), China Telecom (14%). The monopoly position of these operators negatively affects the level of competition: in terms of the cost of using communication services, each representative of the trio offers approximately the same prices, leaving, in fact, subscribers no choice.

To make calls to tourists, cards of any Chinese mobile operator are available. To purchase a starter package, you need to present a foreign passport. The rates offered are per month. The cost is from 80 yuan and can reach several thousand in the national currency of the PRC. The best option is a fare for 100 yuan (approximately 500 rubles). Tariffs take effect on the first day of each month.

Safety

In China, the most unexpected troubles and even dangers can await a tourist. Let's take a look at the most common ones.

During a taxi ride, there is a chance of running into unscrupulous drivers and losing money. Such scammers deliberately attach a handle or antenna to the car with adhesive tape, which naturally fall off even with a light touch. First of all, inexperienced tourists come across such a “bait”, and they are billed for the alleged breakdown.

In general, the Celestial Empire is famous for its low crime rate and the benevolent attitude of the police towards guests. However, in any city you can stumble upon petty thieves who can “steal” a wallet or documents in an instant, so being in the midst of people, you need to keep your eyes open.

Be especially careful on the roads. If in large cities the Rules of the Road still mean something, then in the provinces many people drive at their own discretion (especially drivers of bicycles and scooters), because of which you can be under the wheels of a car.

Chinese cuisine is not quite familiar to the Russian stomach. Having sorted out too much or eating something that is not right, you can ruin your whole vacation. You should avoid dubious eateries and absolutely exotic food like scorpions, grasshoppers or cockroaches. Very spicy dishes flavored with many seasonings can also pose a danger.

In some provinces of China, an unfavorable epidemiological situation continues for a number of infectious diseases, such as malaria or clonorchiasis. You can find out about the situation in a particular region in advance.

Hotels and accommodation

Today, there are more than 300,000 hotels in China. A significant part of them is located in the center of large tourist cities. Hotels with a high level of service are also found in the provinces, which suggests that in this country you can easily find a place for temporary residence, as they say, for every taste and budget.

For lovers of a comfortable stay with all amenities, such hotels as Mandarin Oriental Pudong, Shanghai New Development Sentosa Hotel and Shanghai Acme Sunhall Service Apartment, located in the center of Shanghai, are suitable.

High-quality service, delicious breakfasts and stylish rooms will make your stay in China even more pleasant and unforgettable. The cost of living in 4-5 * hotels ranges from 300 to 700 yuan per day, in 2-3 * - from 100 to 350 yuan. For those who go to China for a longer period, rented apartments are suitable, the cost of which ranges from 600 to 1300 yuan.

In China, as in many other countries, accommodation in hostels, which are relatively cheap, has become popular among tourists. The cost of a double room in a hostel is about 100 yuan. For those who have a rest in a group, there are rooms for 6-10 people, the cost of which ranges from 30 to 70 CNY per person.

Accommodation in a hostel is really much more profitable than in a hotel. The conditions are no worse: free breakfasts, clean rooms, Wi-Fi. The money saved on accommodation can be spent on souvenirs and gifts.

How to get there

Every day, two Aeroflot flights operate from Moscow to Beijing, and one flight is operated by the Chinese airline Air China. You will be in the air for about eight hours.

Aeroflot planes fly daily, while China Eastern Airlines fly several times a week. The direct flight will take about 10 hours.

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