Fuddland

A trip to the very north of north-east China--on the Russian border--and the surrounding area in May 2006.

This category is a subcategory of Travelling in China.

Our initial attempt to visit the border with Russia ended in partial failure: we were indeed taken to a border crossing by a taxi driver, but it was the purely functional one for immigration and import/export purposes—entirely uninteresting, tourist-wise. However, it was here, whilst trying to find a ride back to town, that we met the driver who would become our tour guide for the next couple of days, and after visiting Dalai Lake we took a short trip out to the built-for-tourists border crossing point.

As far as I could tell, one couldn’t actually travel between China and Russia here, unless you were driving a train lugging timber from one country to the other, but there was an observation point and complete with binoculars to gaze out over “no man’s land” and Russia beyond.

Whilst we were having a gander, some Chinese visitors decided that it was much more interesting to have their photos taken with foreigners than look at the entirely different country yonder, so we were subjected to a mini photoshoot as various children were thrust beside us and our bemused smiles captured for posterity. Once that was over, we were able to wander out into the designated area in limbo, under the watchful eye of a nearby guard—but he was soon comandeered by our driver into taking photos of us all; from the confused glances he kept throwing his colleagues, I’m fairly sure this wasn’t an everyday occurrence [particularly the part where our driver manhandled me over the chains, where I clearly wasn’t supposed to go, and commanded the guard to take more photos, ignoring his half-hearted protests].

Having befriended a quite crazy local cab driver willing to take us far and wide, we went to Dalai Hu—about an hour’s drive south of Manzhouli—and were surprised to discover that, despite the recent warm weather, the lake was still almost completely frozen over.

There were very few people around, despite [or perhaps because of?] this area being a designated nature reserve, and we spent several hours wandering along the edge of the lake and on the cliffs above. I’d have loved to have spent a few days travelling around the circumference—you can see on Google Maps that it’s one of the largest lakes in China [possibly the world], but unfortunately there just wasn’t time.

[For more, see all the photos I’ve tagged with Dalai Lake on Flickr.]

Visiting the city of Manzhouli was a strange experience. Sitting right on the border with Russia and being the main thoroughfare for both people and goods between the two countries in this region, the streets and restaurants are overrun with non-Chinese [i.e. predominantly Russian] people—something of a mild culture shock after three months of being in the minority, race-wise, in Benxi.

Manzhouli itself doesn’t have a lot to offer, save for some lovely blue skies [again, quite a novelty after getting used to the Benxi smog], a couple of nice little restaurants [chips! sour cream! real, proper wholemeal loaves of bread!] and the impossibly long trains transporting oil and timber.

An indoor dry ski-slope.

The journey to Manzhouli ended up being a twenty-hour train ride from Shenyang, and initially it looked as though we were going to be standing all the way there. As we squeezed our way onto one of the carriages, the reality of holiday travel in China hit us: there was literally only a square foot or so for us each to stand in, with our conspicuously large rucksacks drawing all kinds of dagger-stares from the other passengers.

There was no chance of getting anywhere near comfortable, for—even if you could find a suitable position in which to stand—you were forever being forced to shift out of the way to let somebody pass. Smokers lit up all around; people snacked then dropped their litter where they stood; a toddler relieved himself on the floor.

I wasn’t keen on snapping away with my camera with so many clearly highly-strung people in close proximity, but I did manage to shoot a very short movie which just about shows the conditions in our carriage.

After enduring this for two hours, we decided to use our secret weapon: a note from a friend of a friend of a friend … of a friend of our headmaster. He had some sort of connection to the train manager, and the message said something along the lines of:

These two fine British chaps are friends of mine. Please do your best to find them a couple of beds in the sleeper carriage, or failing that, at least some seats for their journey.

Thanks to a Hercluean effort on the part of Alan, who battled through four carriages to get to the train manager’s office, we were amazed to find that the note was immediately effective. At the next stop—another hour or so—I somehow managed to carry our two bags off the train, was met by Alan [who had pegged it down from where he’d gotten stuck on his way back to me] and we dashed up to the sleeper carriages, where we were soon shown to our luxurious [by comparison to the first part of the journey] bunks for a welcome night’s sleep and some relaxed viewing of the countryside the next day, until we arrived early that evening.