Dan's Adventure

Big, dirty, smelly, over crowded and absolutely rife with pollution, its sad to say, but all the cities I visited in China were the same. At times the pollution was so bad that you could barely see 10 metres in front of you due to the smog. With traffic everywhere pumping out exhaust fumes and huge factories and power stations on the outskirts blowing emissions into the air its not hard to see why Chinese cities lie under a thick grey blanket of dirt.

I had what felt like a permanent cold for the 4 weeks I was in China; I grew very tired of seeing tissues covered in black stuff whenever I blew my nose. The low temperatures in Shanghai and Beijing probably didn’t help matters, but I think that it was mostly due to the fumes I was breathing in. Everywhere you go, the Chinese are wearing face masks, not because of swine flu, but to provide a little defence against the fumes.

Whether it was walking along the tops of the city walls of Xian, looking across the lake at the Summer Palace in Beijing or taking a look at the Pagodas in Guillin, the smog was always there obscuring the view and making me feel nauseous. China is a fascinating country but if I return I will be avoiding going to cities as much as possible. With an ever growing population and constantly grid locked streets, the problem is only going to get worse.

In a sharp contrast to the cities, the countryside is beautiful. I loved being out and about near Yangshuo, Longsheng and Lijiang in particular. The journey to Lijiang was actually the first time that I had seen the sun and blue skies since I left India almost 4 weeks before!