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I arrived late last night (11:30PM) in Bangkok’s 1-year-old Suvarnbhumi airport. I was surprised how many people were there at that time of night and a lot of people were spending the night on the seats there. I met up with my Thai friend, Yu and then we took a taxi to one of her friends homes in the city where we slept for 3 hours. After waking up at 5AM, we took a 6AM bus from the east bus station of Bangkok to the city of Chanthaburi, about 3.5 hours away.

I spent the rest of the day at the English school she works and lives at. I met all the people who work here (two receptionists, another teacher), and I even got to even got to sit in on a couple classes and meet some students. There are all ages of students here from very young kids to about to graduate high school students. I also took a nap, so I’m doing ok with sleep.

For dinner Yu, her father, and I went to a restaurant next to the river in town. You eat outside along the river and they also have live music there. We had all sorts of sea food: shrimp, crab, mussels. Actually a quite fancy meal for my first dinner in the country.

I noticed the  moon is directly overhead here, about a 90 degree angle above the horizon. I’ve never seen that before since I’ve never been this far south and this close to the equator!

It is hot here and I sleep in my own room without air conditioning. But it is alright since I have a fan pointed at me the whole time.

Tonight I am leaving China on a budget airline called Air Asia to Bangkok, Thailand. My first flight since Detroit to Tokyo in September.

My plan is to stay in Thailand about 30 days (that’s the limit on how long I can stay without a Visa), then maybe visit another country or two (Cambodia/Laos/Vietnam/Malaysia), then return to China in March/April probably. I listed out some places I want to see in China, and I think I need two months to do that. I better take advantage of my Chinese visa, which is good until the end of April.

Here in South China, the weather is in the 60’s F. Now in Thailand with the humidity it is supposed to feel over 100 degrees F everyday. I’m going to have to brace myself.

The city of Xiamen is located on the southeast coast of China. The weather here seems comparable to Florida. Not too hot, not too cold.

The 24 hour train arrived on schedule. Got off the train and straight onto bus #1, which runs to Xiamen University, near a hostel.

For dinner, I found a place with no English anywhere and picked a few random things off the menu. Still was hungry, so I went to another place and had a plate of food there too!

There were two trains leaving today, one at the close station in the morning, and the other at the far away station at night (after most of the buses stop running). I decided the safe thing to do was go to the close station, even though the train ride was going to be a few hours longer.

It wasn’t raining too much when I left and it wasn’t as foggy. The weather forecast said there would be a lot of rain today so I decided to leave. The hostel recommended taking a taxi to the train station, but I wanted to try my luck with a bus. I took a bus half way and then walked the other half. By the time I got there the train was leaving within a hour. I bought my ticket (the guy at the window thought I said Xi’an instead of Xiamen and almost got a ticket for that), ate a bowl of noodles, then take another plate of food. I tried to eat as much as I could before this 24 hour ride. I also bought some apples, pears, crackers and bread.

I wanted to give away my coat before I left, but I didn’t have much time. The train was going to depart in 10 minutes and the gate closes in 5 minutes, so I had to go through security and get to my gate. So made it on the train and settled in.

These are really long rides, especially when I have no one to talk to. But maybe I’m used to not talking so it is OK for me. Again, I think I was the only foreigner on the entire train. I wish there was electricity for my computer, but nope. And my battery isn’t brand new anymore. Maybe I get a hour out of it now. I do have a novel and my travel guide to read and my audio player to listen to. Luckily I think there is a 20 hour battery life on my audio player so I load that up before I go. This time 3 podcasts, 10 lectures, maybe 4 albums of music.

Departing Hangzhou at 9:50AM and arriving in Xiamen at 10:07AM (next day).

I don’t think the heat was working in this room; no matter which buttons I tried pressing on the heater controls nothing worked correctly. Instead I put on all my blankets, turned my computer on and put it under my blankets to use it as a space heater. I slept alright.

For breakfast I ate at a buffet at the hostel. After my Hostelling International 20% discount, I can have all you can eat for $1.63. Well, it isn’t Big Boy Restaurant, but good enough.

I decided today was the day to finally see Hangzhou, called the most beautiful city in China. Except today it was raining and foggy, so there wasn’t much to see. Everything surrounds West Lake. Lakes must be a big deal to Chinese people, but they aren’t to me. The lake is about the size of Cass Lake or Orchard Lake in Michigan and there are paths going all the way around it. I saw some people taking wedding photos, but it was kind of funny, with all the fog, shooting the photos on a white background would give the same effect!

I also checked into a new hostel. The old one didn’t have wireless that worked. The cafe next door did have wireless, but they turn off their modem on off hours. The new hostel said they have Ethernet in every room, so I paid. When I got in the room, the Ethernet was dead. They gave me a key to another room, dead there too. Actually, it appears every dorm room has it deactivated, only the more expensive rooms have it.  I ended up going to the lobby, unplugging one of their computers and plugging in my own. So many problems with Internet access traveling through China! I haven’t been able to upload my photos.

Today I saw Jingci Temple and Lingyin Temple here in Hangzhou.  The second one was a really impressive place at least.

I woke up around 4 or 4:30AM. I think it was a little too cold to sleep in the room, plus I had a lot of things to see. No Internet access out here either. First thing I did was walk up the mountain, which is about 300 meters or so high. I was the only one I saw at that time walking up the many stairs to Foding peak. At the top I visited Huiji Monastery, which was just opening as I was around there at 5:30AM. I noticed they were serving breakfast there, but I couldn’t figure out how to pay and eat it. I saw some tickets in the bowl, pointed to them and asked “where?” A guy just kept saying “don’t have, don’t have.” No one wanted to help me out, so after climbing the mountain I couldn’t get anything to eat.

On the way back down, I walked past Buddhist a few monks and nuns prostrating themselves up the stairs of the mountain. Tough compared to my simple walk up. At the bottom, I visited Fayu Monastery, and also the nearby beach. Then I walked over to Puji Monastery, which was the busiest and most popular. It is a nice atmosphere around the island with sandy beaches, trees, mountains, and old buildings.

After checking out of my hotel (they had to let a maid double check my room before they would let me go), I visited Nanhai Guanyin. Then I got on a 12:05PM ferry back to the mainland.

Back in Ningbo, I wanted to visit this Tiantong Temple the guidebook talks about, so I was able to find a bus to get me over to the East Bus Station of this city. From there I was supposed to take bus 332, but it was no where to be found! I guess the book failed me, but I tried my best. It was going to get dark in a hour. I wanted to stay in a hostel in this city, but I had no map of its location, so I had to go all the way back to where I knew there was a hostel: Hangzhou. If I only would have known the location of that hostel, I could have asked them out to get to this place and make it a less rushed day.

I surprised myself by using the bus system in this city myself by only reading Chinese signs! I was going to East bus station, South bus station, so I was able to find the words for the directions and station and get on the correct bus myself. So I ended up taking a 4:16PM bus back to Hangzhou. Back in Hangzhou, the bus I wanted stopped running about 4PM or so! Everything stops so early in China. Again, the only people that wanted to help where the people selling overpriced rides (50 Yuan vs 2 Yuan bus). I was considering trying my luck with any bus and then take a taxi the rest of the way, but some helpful young Chinese people saw me and helped me get on a bus near my hostel. First time in days anyone helping me instead of trying to take advantage of me, so I was glad! I got back like 7:30PM or so, and went to been soon after.

I wanted to go see Mt. Putuo, which is also an island out on the ocean. There were at least 3 buses and a ferry involved, so I tried to get started early in the day. Without seeing anything in Hangzhou, I took a bus to the East Bus Station of the city. Then I took a bus to the city of Ningbo. Ningbo is a smaller city in China that no one has really heard of. It only has 5.6 million people in it.

Then I had to make it to the passenger ferry terminal in Ningbo. I tried to find a bus, but no luck. Then someone tried to help, but he actually wasn’t helping, he wanted me to get on the back of his motorcycle. After a while I talked him down from 30 Yuan to 15 Yuan. The problem was he didn’t know exactly where the terminal was. He got me close but then dropped me off and told me to find the place on my own! He also asked for 20 Yuan after all that, which I gave him because I didn’t feel like getting in a fist fight today. It took me nearly a hour of walking around to find the terminal.

Finally I paid for a ferry ticket, which included a bus ride to another city before the ferry. When I got to Putuoshan, it was nearly 8 hours since I left the hostel in the morning. I was figuring on 5 hours. The entrance fee ($19) to the island went up a lot over what my guidebook said, just like the ferry price ($9.50), and the bus price ($7.50) . On top of that there is no hostel on the island, so this is one expensive part of the trip. At the arrival terminal, I was able to book a hotel room. I got the cheapest room on the island ($22). By the time I checked into my hotel, it was getting dark.

I walked around a little after dark and had some dinner. Another funny thing, the price of dinner was a little higher than the items I picked out on the menu for some reason.

Not all the beds on the train were full until 4AM. That’s when I was woken up and had to move my backpack off the empty bed above me for new people. Some people bring there small children and sleep in the same small bed. I think in my 6ft by 6ft space there were 8 people sleeping in 6 beds. I don’t think they get many foreigners on this route either. I think most foreigners either fly or go to different cities, so I might be the only one on the entire train.

I got to Hangzhou about 4PM I think. It gets dark about 5PM, so I found a place to stay and then didn’t really see anything.

Last day in this city. I woke up today feeling better for the first time in days. I knew I was finally on the road to getting over this sickness. One of my roommates was planning on climbing a mountain today but I wasn’t quite well enough to join him on that, however. I’ll have to come back some other time to do that!

I bought a ticket to the city of Hangzhou. which is over near the coastline. It is half way to another city, Xiamen. I have to be there by December 19, since I have a ticket to fly to Thailand that day. And I’m hoping my debit card will have arrived successfully in Thailand when in arrive.

Tonight I have a 21 hour train starting at 5PM. Maybe that’s my longest one yet.

After another night of 12 hours of sleep, I’m still not feeling much better. I need to go out anyway and see one or two things at least.

In the rain today I visited the Shaanxi History Museum and the Big Goose Pagoda. In the museum it was interesting to see 2000 year old swords without any rust on them. They figured out stainless steel or something similar back then.

In front of the Big Goose Pagoda there is a water show at 8PM, but that was a little too late for me. Maybe some other time. I made it back to the hostel around 5PM, had some noodles and went to sleep early.