The beer was founded in 1903 during the German colonial times. The area was part of a German leased territory from 1898 until 1914 (with the outbreak of the First World War the Japanese swiftly occupied the territory).

Apart from the beer, the German heritage is evident in the architecture of many buildings. In the old town you fill at some points as if you are walking through a Southern German town, only that all signs are in Chinese. I thought that the city has done a reasonably well job at preserving its heritage and while I haven’t visited any other Chinese cities, I am sure it feels unique.

Below are some impressions of our walk around town:

The former Governor’s Palace was consequently used as guest house for many statesmen

Cute little houses around the historic district

The St. Michael’s Cathedral

The St. Michael’s Cathedral (or Zhejian Road Catholic Church) was constructed in 1934 after the areas was again returned to Chinese control.

Inside the St. Michael’s Cathedral

View from the beach towards the shore

The buildings along the shore remind me of some towns in Northern Germany – and so did the weather!

Just as a comparison, this is what the Central Business District of Qingdao looks like (pictured is the May 4th monument):

QIngdao Central Business District

Quite a contrast, isn’t it!

While there’s the large, famous research base on the outskirts of Chengdu, I had read on another blog about a volunteer program at the China Conservation and Research Center for the Great Panda – Dujiangyan Base. For around EUR100 per person, you get to spend a day learning about the pandas and get up close.

Dujiangyan is quite a bit outside Chengdu, probably a 90mins drive. We decided to take public transport for the experience. I think public transport is always a great opportunity to get to know a country and its people better.

Already the day before we had made the trip out to Xipu Railway station (accessible by metro line 2) in Chengdu’s north to buy train tickets. Apparently they sell out. For RMB10 per person (EUR1.30), we took the 07:53 train the next day to Qingchengshan. The modern train went up to nearly 200km/h and took us in less than half an hour to our destination. From there we took a bus for a short ride to the Panda Base, getting there just before 9 and in time for the start of the program.

Train from Xipu

The modern train took less than half an hour

Train ticket from/to Chengdu Xipu

Entry to the Panda Base

Dujiangyan Panda Base

Our volunteering program starting with cleaning the panda cages. Step 1: scoop up all panda poop. These guys poop a lot. Apparently an adult eats around 20kg of bamboo a day (and that’s almost their entire diat) and poops 10kg. Solid. Step 2: scrub the panda cages and spray disinfectant. Step 3: replenish bamboo supplies. Employee of the year award goes to the person at the base who figured out that tourists are willing to pay money for this. The Chinese tourists visiting the base had their laughs.

Naughty Panda baby trying to escape its enclosure

Two Panda baby twins

While we were doing this, the pandas were observing us. One “panda house” we couldn’t clean because the bear did not want to come down from his tree, not allowing us to enter his area.

This fella wouldn’t allow us to clean his “kingdom”. He was busy climbing trees.

After some downtime were we got to walk around the base, we got to my favorite part. Feeding the pandas! Of course, bamboo.

Dujiangyan Panda Base

Dujiangyan Panda Base

Dujiangyan Panda Base

Dujiangyan Panda Base

Dujiangyan Panda Base

Dujiangyan Panda Base

Dujiangyan Panda Base

The Red Panda at Dujiangyan Panda Base

The Red Panda at Dujiangyan Panda Base

For lunch, the staff took us to their canteen, which was very tasty. This was followed by some more free time, followed by a documentary about efforts to reintegrate pandas into the wild. If I remember correctly, there are roughly an estimated 1’200 pandas left in the wild and 300 in captivity. The Dujiangyan Base houses 30 of them.

Lunch at the staff canteen

We skipped the last part of the day, baking panda cakes (which pandas are fed in addition to bamboo) and instead started our way back to Qingchengshan and then Xipu in Chengdu.

Getting up close with these unique animals is a very special opportunity that I can only recommend. I don’t know whether there are other places besides Dujiangyan where one can get that close. When we were there, there was a total of around 10 volunteers and I suspect it is only bound to become more popular. E-mail them at pandaeducatecenter@163.com if you want to go.

Our volunteer certificate

The arrival wasn’t without a little bit of drama. Since we stayed for just 40 hours in the country and continued straight on to Thailand, we could benefit from the Transit without Visa (TWOV) scheme and save the hassle (and money!) of getting a Chinese tourist visa. Upon departure in Amsterdam, our documents were checked and we were allowed to board without issues. However at immigration, we were motioned to step aside and wait. And wait. And then wait some more. Eventually, a senior immigration officer came over to take photos of our passports and send them via WeChat somewhere else. Soon after, an airline rep appeared and he was frightened. Apparently the origin station had not reported our TWOV arrival, so he had not prepared the necessary paperwork (which was new to me). He said the officials were discussing whether to reject our entry. Some discussion ensued and we were asked about the purpose of every United Arab Emirates stamp in our passport (the only stamps with arabic characters). Eventually it was decided we were not a threat and granted our TWOV. Yay!

With immigration behind us, cash and hotel directions in hand, we took a taxi for the roughly half hour drive to our hotel in the city center.

We opted for a locally themed hotel as opposed to one of the countless new business hotels.

Wenjun Mansion Hotel

Over the next 1.5 days we got to experience the city a little bit, but I am not sure how much more there is to explore in this 15 million inhabitants city.

Fruit at a market near Xipu Railway Station

As with most Chinese cities, the likes of Mobike and other shared bike providers have taken over

We started out at People’s Park where everyone was out and about, celebrating the start of the weekend. Adding to the jovial mood was the fact that the sun was shining and temperatures had reached a comfortable 20 degrees. Some women were even out looking for husbands for their sons in the “Dating Corner”.

People’s Park

Dating Corner in People’s Park

Emergency toilets?!

Of course, there’s also a Mao statue – here at Tianfu Square.

Mao at Tianfu Square

Tianfu Square

We walked through the shopping area around Chunxi Road. As glitzy and shiny as it could be, with every major Western brand represented.

Shopping around Chunxi Road

Shopping around Chunxi Road

In the evening we had dinner in the Kuanzhaixiangzi Alleys, an area with a couple of alleys with old Chinese houses. Although there it was overcrowded and most shops were geared towards tourists, it is an enjoyable area.

Kuanzhaixiangzi Alleys

Starbucks at Kuanzhaixiangzi Alleys

In case you would like to get your ears cleaned…

Would I recommend a visit to Chengdu? As a standalone trip, not sure. But if you’re going to visit the pandas, you should definitely add a day to see the city. Did I mention, we saw less than two dozen Westerners during our stay?

With animals and nature checked, we wanted to add some beach time and settled on Koh Lipe in the very south, advertised as “the Maldives of Thailand”. The trip would end with some days in Singapore, our old home.

This was our final itinerary:

Looking back, it was probably too much travel for the short period of time. Not necessarily too many stops, but too much travel with planes.

Stay tuned for the trip report!

For a while I’ve been intrigued by the Chinese Transit Without Visa (TWOV) program that let’s selected nationalities transit at selected airports from 24 to 144 hours (depending on the airport). It is only available if you fly non-stop into and out of China. Passengers must have confirmed onward tickets to a third country (not the PRC, and not the country from which they arrived). There is a very good thread on Flyertalk explaining the rules.

Back in April, AirAsia announced that they would start flying from Johor Bahru (a few miles north of the Malaysia-Singapore border) to Guangzhou. This could be combined with a return flight from Guangzhou back to Singapore on Scoot and I would fulfill the requirements for the TWOV. I ended up booking the following itinerary:

AK1394 JHB2200 – 0200+1CAN

TZ127 CAN0345 – 0815SIN

AirAsia started promoting the new route with introductory pricing of MYR96 (SGD32) for the four hour flight. The return on Scoot ended up costing CNY418 (SGD87) including an annoying SGD10 credit card surcharge…

So for an overall SGD119 per person we booked our Guangzhou trip.

Maybe not the most direct transit through China that has ever been booked.

I traveled with a friend and our trip started out by taking a Malaysian taxi from Ban San St. Taxi Kiosk at Rochor Rd Friday evening across the border to Senai Airport north of Johor Bahru.

Senai Airport entrance

We were slightly worried whether there would be any complications at check-in since we did not have visas and the Guangzhou flights just started two weeks prior and probably there had not been many guys with an itinerary like ours. But we did not encounter any issues and spent the next two hours waiting for our flight. We arrived quite a bit early since traffic at the border is unpredictable on a Friday evening.

Check-in hall at JHB

Not too much action at JHB on Friday evenings.

Our ride to Guangzhou

The flight was a typical non-eventful four hour AirAsia experience and we arrived at an empty Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport on time. At immigration we were directed to the “Special Needs” lane and were processed without any awkward questions within a few minutes. Having a printout of your onward ticket does help! We hopped into a taxi and reached our hotel, the New World Hotel just a bit over an hour after landing around 3.30am.

The New World Hotel entrance

The hotel was in a good, central location and clean. We paid around USD63 and got a nice room. Would I stay here again? Probably. Was it a classy hotel? Nope. They sure did have a good photographer for their website though!

After sleeping in Saturday morning, we went out to explore the city a little bit. We started out with a temple around the corner from our hotel, the Guangxiao Temple (光孝寺).

Entrance of the Guangxiao Temple

Inside Guangxiao Temple

Inside Guangxiao Temple

Inside Guangxiao Temple

Inside Guangxiao Temple

Inside Guangxiao Temple

From there we walked through some back alleys to another temple, the Temple of the Six Banyan Trees (六榕寺).

Guangzhou back alley

Resident door signage

Temple of the Six Banyan Trees

Temple of the Six Banyan Trees pagoda

That was then enough culture for the day and we hopped into a taxi that would take us to Qingping Market, the place to go for agricultural complementary products and traditional Chinese herbal medicines (not that we were intending to buy either of these).

It was interesting but didn’t manage to capture our attention for more than half an hour.

Inside Qingping Market

Inside Qingping Market

Tea on sale

Our next stop was the Baiyun World Leather Trading Center, the place to go for… leather goods. We took Guangzhou’s modern subway system to get there. I did not take many photos inside this complex – for obvious reasons sellers were not too keen on taking photos.

Entrance of the Baiyun World Leather Trading Center

After the short night we started to get tired and decided to take it easy for the rest of the day. Trying Uber for the first time in China, we drop to the “Party Pier”. This area south of the Pearl River (or Zhujiang) used to the location of the Zhujian Brewery and has now been converted into a bar and club area. Quite well done.

Crossing the Pearl River on the Liede Bridge

The Canton Tower (广州塔) – completed in 2010 and currently the the third tallest tower in the world (595.7 m)

View of the Guangzhou central business district

The Party Pier

Former part of the brewery now converted into shops and restaurants

All restaurants have a Western twist… American steakhouse, American seafood, Mexican, Italian etc. We got ourselves comfortable at McRocky, a Western-themed steakhouse with nice views on the river.

Pearl River Cruise

At 9pm the Euro Football Championship game between Switzerland and Albania started which we watched.

Switzerland (1) vs Albania (0)

After the game ended around 11pm we ordered an Uber and headed back to the airport, getting there just before midnight. By now we were very tired and check-in wouldn’t open for almost another hour. Needless to say, it was not the most pleasant part of the trip while we waited for our 3.45am departure to Singapore.

Scoot has a program whereby one can bid for an upgrade to their “business” class. I consider it more of a premium economy however it is a signficant upgrade from the 3-3-3 configuration in economy. As on my previous Scoot flights, I bidded the minimum amount possible (around CNY350 – SGD74) and ended up getting the upgrade.

Gate A106 at 3am

Scoot’s premium cabin

Back in Singapore

We landed at Singapore over an hour early and as always were quickly through immigration. Exhausted but happy, we were back from our Johor Bahru to Singapore via Guangzhou trip and had managed to transfer through China without a visa.

Leifeng Pagoda tourist density

Luckily, the tourist density was comfortable on the day we were there. I don’t want to know what the other levels are.

Very tasty naan-like breads from a street vendor

Hotpot with lots of meat

We accidentally ordered the meat twice, oh well.

Another night we had dinner at a newly opened BBQ restaurant. I asked whether it was Australian beef and was told “No, made in China”. It was very tasty.

You can never have enough meat for hotpot

One night we went to a restaurant called Grandma’s Kitchen, a popular chain serving local dishes as cooked by Grandma. While there was a long queue, I don’t know whether we got a foreigner bonus and but got a table without waiting. In general we saw very few Westerners, maybe less than a dozen in two days.

Unfortunately I forgot to take photos of the dishes as we were so hungry but I can say it was very good and fair prices (we paid €30 for three people). There are outlets all over town. We went to the one at Hangzhou Towers (杭州市体育场路538号).

More meat at Grandma’s Kitchen

In a shopping mall we stopped for some dessert at a restaurant specializing in mango desserts. Insanely sweet but not too bad.

Insanely sweet mango dessert

Last but not least, here are some photos of food we did not try during our visit (and I doubt I will ever try):

Some kind of fried (?) chicken feet

Roasted baby chickens (?)

and of course, the duck heads:

Duck heads

Over the past two years or so, the airline Scoot has developed a decent network of destinations in Chinese secondary cities with reasonable prices. Just like we flew with them to Qingdao, they were the best option to Hangzhou. The flight there would leave Friday afternoon and back overnight on Sunday night. Flight time is around four hours.

Scoot to Hangzhou

The world’s first airline with an all B787 Dreamliner flight. Our plane to Hangzhou, “Lickity-split”

None of us really knew anything about Hangzhou before this trip. In fact, one of us (it wasn’t me) thought we were going to Guangzhou until a few days before departure. A quick search on Google and Wikitravel revealed that Hangzhou, capital of the Zhejiang Province, has a population of just 7 million. It is famous for the West Lake (西湖), a UNESCO World Heritage site known for its gardens and pagodas around the lake. It has been featured in many Chinese poems, painting and has even been mentioned by Marco Polo in his travel diaries.

We stayed at a hotel not too far from the lake and spent the first day walking around it. During our research we had missed that it was haze season in China. And while we had a pretty bad case of haze in Singapore this year, you haven’t truly experienced haze until you’ve been to China. But the thing is, we weren’t keen to experience the mother of all haze. Luckily, it was not as bad as it could have been on the weekend we were there. While the weather was mostly sunny on Saturday, we were limited in our activities on Sunday due to the rain and spend it walking around picturesque Hefang Street.

Map of the West Lake. Please excuse the quality, I only had my phone camera with me.

View of the West Lake

The lake’s circumference is around 15km, so do factor in plenty of time if you want to walk entirely around it. We covered maybe a bit over half by foot. It is very popular to take boat rides on the lake. At first I wasn’t sure how exciting it would be to just walk around the lake, but my doubts were not justified. It is a very nice walk (probably more romantic with a partner than two buddies) and offers many attractions in the forms of gardens, causeways and temples.

Pond at the West Lake

No cars around the West Lake

Temple on top of a hill

One of the various causeways, the longest being around 3km long

Writing a poem (?) with water

Keep in mind we were there during winter which I imagine is low season. However it was very crowded. A lot of locals from Shanghai like to come and I would expect it to be very crowded during other times of the year.

On the southern shore we visited the Leifeng Pagoda which can be seen from far away.

Leifeng Pagoda

Leifeng Pagoda

For a few yuans we took an elevator to the top from where you have a nice view of the lake:

View of West Lake from Leifeng Pagoda

Just behind it we visited the much less crowded Jingci Temple (净慈寺). Inside the main hall there is a beautiful Buddha statue:

Inside Jingci Temple

Main hall

We ended up walking nearly 20km on the first day and were very exhausted by the time we came back to the hotel, hence I cannot comment on the city’s nightlife.

As I’ve mentioned, the second day we were somewhat unlucky with the weather as it rained a lot. We took a taxi to Hefang Street, a touristy but older street famous for souvenirs, traditional pharmacies and the local Longjing Tea. While my photos probably don’t do the street justice due to the weather, it is a good place to pick up some souvenirs (or Christmas presents in our case) and visit the pharmacies.

Hefang Street

Hefang Street

Fully loaded tricycle

Beautiful old buildings in good shape

Inside one of the many pharmacies

And another one

At that point we still had a few hours before our flight back. Due to the weather we didn’t do much anymore. There were some more points on our list, especially some shorter hikes in the hills surrounding the lake such as walking up to the Baochu Pagoda but all would have required better weather.

Overall we really liked our two days in Hangzhou. The lake is beautiful and you should plan at least a full day for it. Besides Hefang Street we felt that otherwise the city does not offer too much else for tourists but we would have liked to explore a bit more of the nature around the lake and maybe visit one of the villages in the vicinity.

Stay tuned for some photos of the more “interesting” food we saw.

Getting there is fairly straight forward. There are frequent busses going from downtown to the visitor’s center. However due to traffic jams it can take anywhere from one to two hours. There are also many tour operators around but from what we read beforehand was that usually you end up visiting a bunch of shops along the way. We ended up sharing a taxi between the three of us. The fare was 150 RMB (€22) to get there and 80 RMB (€11) to get back. Not quite sure what went wrong one the way there…

At the visitor’s centre you have to get your tickets (120 RMB). No private cars are allowed inside the park area, so you have to board one of the frequently running busses which will take you to the base station of the cable car. There you pay once again for the cable (another 40 RMB one-way). We were happy to see that the cable car was of Swiss origin and hence the ride was quick and smooth.

The busses that take you to the cable car station

Entry ticket

One of the many statues that we passed along the way

Just as we were about to break through the clouds

It was a very cloudy day but eventually we broke through the cloudes in the cable cars. While still not sunny, at least there was a slightly better view. We thought the cable car would take us to the top but boy were we wrong. What followed was a one hour or so hike up (hundreds of stairs). It was a joyful atmosphere with many families out. At the top we were rewarded with good views:

The views are getting better…

…and better

It was a beautiful setting with the clouds rolling over the mountains

and a camouflaged army building.

We almost missed it, it was so well hidden

At the top

After a one hour hike straight up the mountain

How artistic is this photo please? Hashtag nofilter

On the way back

Heading down was a lot quicker obviously and via cable car, bus and taxi we were back downtown just in time for dinner (and maybe another fresh beer).

On the way down

If you’ve got a spare day in Qingdao, I’d definitely recommend visiting Laoshan. If the weather is better, I am sure the views would also be a lot more spectacular. However you do need at least 3/4 of a day. While we did the most popular hike, there are countless other hikes within the park.

While Tsingtao isn’t China’s best selling beer brand (Snow Beer is sold almost twice as much), it is by far the most exported beer. In Qingdao Tsingtao beer is omnipresent. The factory deliverys fresh kegs on a daily basis. Residents then get their daily dose of the beer. What is interesting is that the beer isn’t sold in cans or glasses but rather in plastic bags. Measuring units are used to determine the right weight of the plastic bag.

There are various kinds of beer on sale, though the majority is the classic Tsingtao.

500g of Tsingtao. Or was it 1kg? There is no deposit on the plastic bags

The Tsingtao delivery express making its rounds

A jug of fresh Tsingtao. It will set you back around 20 RMB (~3 EUR)

Of course we also visited the Tsingtao Brewery. While not much more exciting than other brewery museums, it’s fun and worth visiting. There are two types of tickets: one which includes one sample and a slightly more expensive ticket that includes “many, many, many” samples.

Tsingtao Brewery

Exhibition inside the museum

Just outside the museum, “Beer Street” is a place lined up with around 20 restaurants serving all kinds of food (emphasis on seafood) and fresh beer. Here you can try all the different kinds. Just be sure to ask about prices, as there are cases of tourists getting ripped off (at one point the restaurant owner wanted 165 RMB (23 EUR) from us for a jug).

“Golden beer” on the left and caramel beer on the right (not my taste)

Pay attention to the manhole covers around the area, they are in different designs:

Manhole cover in Qingdao

While Qingdao has a lot more to offer than beer, it’s Tsingtao heritage has left a special mark on the city. If you visit, it’s hard to ignore it and do give it a try – the beer does indeed taste better when fresh.