Tai'an (Taishan) - 11th - 13th October

After a hard 2 days in taishan, we're finally leaving what I think will be the hardes place that I will travel on our whole trip. Its like no-where ive been before, ive never felt so alienated in all my life. I cant begin to explain what its like, though the best picture I can paint for you is to imagine 'china town' in London, meets oxford street, meets a car boot sale!

It's a huge city and almost as if the entire population of this place in the depths of China has never seen a white/ western person in their lives. Everybody stares, point and laugh, children look completely bewildered then run away and we're regularly stopped in the street to pose for pictures with people (that or we just catch them taking a sly one on their camera phone as they walk past!) The city centre is a huge place built up with skyscrapers and shops, markets and small restaurants but as soon as you leave the neon glow of the high street and centre its just dirty back roads absolutely rammed solid with thousands of chinese people, bikes, mopeds and tuk-tuk's, all going in different directions in the same lanes and street vendors selling just about every type of food and animal imaginable.

After arriving on the first night, buzzing with anticipation as this was the first place that we had actually 'travelled' to, we went for a wander (and got very lost) in the endless maze of roads, backstreets and rivers, all lined either side with shops and stalls, inches apart selling everything from bits of old metal to second hand clothes, ornaments and household products, the complete opposite to what any of us were expecting! I had imagined, not only in Taishan, but all over China, high-tech electronic stalls and fake designer labels but that couldn't be further from the truth (well, so far anyway!) Its almost as if technology has swerved this place, its like going back in time, bicycles and mopeds are the main form of transport, not jus for people but animals, furniture, food stalls, mountains of boxes or anything else they can tie to it with rope of bungees, internet cafés were non-existent and buying a mobile top up card was out of the question. An amazing experience but we all just feel a bit un-easy an out of our depth and that's not helped by the amount of attention we're attracting! *The city is at the base of a huge, particularly famous mountain in China 'Mount Taishan' which attracts a large number of chinese tourists that visit to climb the mountain every year.

We did finally find our way back to our hostel that night, the 'international Taishan Youth Hostel' and aside from everything new and strange we're buzzing with excitement from a new place and culture, compared to Beijing, the people are generally much friendlier and willing to interact, I think its down to curiosity mainly!

We also attempt to climb the mountain which I was really looking forward to, transpires that they charge an extortionate amount of money for entry to the mountain paths (this isn't just me being stingy, it was just under 200yuan which is a lot considering we haven't been paying more than 25yuan each for a huge meal we can't finish and beers!) we managed to walk part way up though, up out of the city and amongst beautiful forestry, waterfalls and rivers coming down from the mountain, and spent some time around the market like stalls on the paths up (bought sam's b-day present here too!) o, and managed to fit a few games of cards and games of our 'shuttle c*** type keppie uppie game thing' that we're yet to name with some locals, that actually turned out to be police, next to the rivers in the sun.

As much as we're enjoying seeing a new place and this city, we're into the second day and itching to get out now, we haven't seen or heard an English or remotely western word since arriving, le alone seen another westerner, which can make it pretty hard work just getting by and we're craving a bit of normality now. With this in mind we head to the train station on Wednesday evening to buy tickets to leave the following day. After an hour long, camped stinking wait in a train staion with hundreds of chinese people staring we luckily manage to get tickets (lucky because generaly in china you buy travel tickets 3-5 days in advance, usually longer to ensure a place) what was'nt so lucky was that since we had left it so late, the only ones available were standing… standing tickets for a 6 and a half hour train journey to Qingdao, though given the option of that or staying another couple of days in Tai'an, we happily oblige and pay 62 yuan (£6) for the journey and make our way home for an early night prior to our 6am alarm the next day.

We're all getting pretty comfortable now, relaxed and calm in our travelling ways, this was until I felt someone trying to get into my backpack, in the dark outside a shop, close to the train station. Im not gonna lie, I let out a little yelp and spun round to find a dodgy looking little chinese guy turn and pretend to look on the shelves in the shop, Smera had been behind me an just caught the end of what happened, we both stood there (in shock) and stared at the guy. We figured the worst thing that we could do would be to cower away so we stood our ground, staring at him (if looks could kill…) until he disappeared into the night. This was such a small thing but shook us all up, especially me, but in a way it wasn't all bad as it brings you back down to earth and realisation of what your actually doing, where you actually are ad the fact that you just cant get too complacent. Making or way back to the hostel we had to cross a pitch black demolition site, rubbish and rubble piled 6foot high, open man holes, groups of locals in corners and the occasional moped an just dimly lit by the skyscrapers a couple of roads away, needless to say we paced it, backpacks now on front and went straight for the safety of the hostel.

The city was an experience to say the least and I don't regret going for a minute, I don't hink it'll be up there wit my list of favourite places but certainly one ill remember! We agreed that we just went a little too deep, too quick, and without the security of Az and Smera I wouldn't have coped. Still, an achievement I feel in a city completely out of our depth and new to the game, we managed to navigate the local buses, see the sights, ate out, conversed (mainly by hand) with the locals and book train tickets without being able to use English!

As I'm writing this, I'm sitting on that very train we queued for so long to book, it wasn't until the train pulled up that we just realised what we had got ourselves into 'Standing' meant standing in the aisles between chairs, or standing in-between carriage, shoulder to shoulder with other passengers that had to resort to standing tickets, chain smoking and bundling their huge luggage into every nook and cranny possible, we could only look at each other and laugh, it was that or cry…. Haha fortunately, with our backpacks on the back and daypacks on the front we were blocking just about every thoroughfare left, the staff couldn't get past, we couldn't move and the Chinese looked generally pissed off, so before long we had some Chinese men shouting in our faces and pointing down the next carriage, making the hand signal for '9' happy for any escape possible, we headed through the carriages to carriage 9, hitting people with our packs on the way past and now extremely hot and bothered we find ourselves in a place even more cramped than before (you wouldn't believe it possible!) and pushed up against a locked door. There's only 1 option left, bang on the door until someone comes to save us! Haha we're cautiously let into what transpired to be a food carriage, luck was on our side, we sat at a table and had to pay for a dodgy Chinese food plate consisting of plain noodles, a plain watery rice dish, some cucumber and rather randomly, an egg for 15 yuan, a small price to pay to be out of the madness of the other carriages for a while!

As it stands, 2 hours later we have managed to blag ourselves a seat in the staff canteen, minding our own business, playing cards and looking out the window at the endless sea of factories bellowing thick white smoke into the air. All of a sudden I understand why there is a constant smog that hangs over china, why people hock and spit freely, some people wear surgical masks in everyday life and why my contact sting like hell by the end of the day! Oh well, Qingdao on the coast next and hopefully some much needed rest after 10 days of non-stop travelling, exploring and sightseeing, I know it's just the tip of the ice berg but im new to this! Haha well 4 hours left now, let's hope we can keep this table, bags stuffed under seats and on laps until we get there. I'll just buy another beer, that should buy us some more time…….