13th December: Guangzhou, China

Wandering out to find coffee and snacks, this area felt different to anywhere else we’ve stayed in China. Granted, we’re a long way out in the suburbs (although looking at the towers and construction you wouldn’t know it) but this felt like a border area. On my 10-minute walk under the train tracks and past the banana trees, I saw people from all corners of the world. This just hasn’t been the case in all of the other parts of China, even in very touristy spots.

Getting back into the block we were staying in, I noticed that the lift went from floor 3 to 3A to 5. 4 in Chinese sounds similar to death and is therefore often avoided. Perhaps this has been the case more often and we’ve just not noticed until now?! Walking back to the station for the metro, we realised that we had made the right decision to get a taxi last night after all! The roads, lack of walking routes, and general chaos felt like a different era of China. More like 2010 than 2024.

As well as the complexity of the road network, the rail links from and around Guangzhou South are astounding. In addition to the enormous 28 platform elevated high speed station, there are two further railway stations! Under the southern and northern ends, completely buried stations serve who knows where. Four metro lines serve the complex and, incredibly, these are from two different cities – 3 from the Guangzhou Metro and 1 from the Foshan Metro. It’s not even a very central or busy area! The scale here is wild. The Pearl River delta is astonishing. The conurbation, with the mouthful of an official name of the Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macao Greater Bay Area, is a megalopolis of at least 11 major cities which sprawl into one population hub of somewhere in the region of 70-90 million people. If measured in this way, it is by far the largest agglomeration on earth. We had one day in this megacity, and it was nearly lunchtime, so we’d best get cracking!

Wandering along the north bank of the Pearl River, the warmth of the sun was glorious. Banyan trees rooted themselves into a tangle. A woman fishing reeled in a massive specimen, needing help to pull it up onto the bank and looking incredibly pleased as onlookers rushed over. This bank was another foreign ‘concession’ and colonial architecture still stood prominently in front of newer skyscrapers. Shamiandao Island has been repurposed into a cultural park, with various party groups operating out of 19^th century buildings between churches. Along canals, half-moon bridges reflected in the water and red lanterns flickered from trees. Washing hanging in ancient alleyways on the way to Liwanhu Park were backlit by the low winter sun.

We passed through a shopping centre for tea and took a look in the Huawei store. Despite US restrictions on semiconductors, their releases last month surpassed western tech with homegrown parts. Amidst this surprise, it’s now the Americans and Europeans who are panicking at their own lack of supply chain resilience. Huawei even sell cars in their stores now alongside the usual phones, laptops, tablets, smart watches etc.

In the park, there were loads of my favourite type of tree. We’ve still not been able to identify them, but they are mid-sized and architectural with fairly long and broad leaves. I’m fairly sure we had one in the garden in Exmouth but it died about 10 years ago. We slightly underestimated the size of Guangzhou and, with only a little daylight remaining, hopped on the metro to the east where the new centre is. I kind of thought that it would be nice to wander for another day or two in Guangzhou but, at the same time, we’ve enjoyed our day walking through some beautiful areas and it’ll be good to move on to more rural spots.

The food place we were aiming for turned out to no longer exist, but we found a really good back up option nearby. We both had a delicious tomato, mushroom, and tofu soup which had just enough chilli to be warming. I had a strongly star anise flavoured ‘pork’ steak and Kaja had some peppery breaded ‘chicken’. Both were served on plentiful seasonal stir-fried vegetables, with a little sauce which had bit of numbing heat from Sichuan pepper, and a big bowl of rice. From here, we took the Automated People Mover (does this count as another different mode of transport?!) a few stops south to Huacheng Square to get a proper look at the night-time skyline. The Canton Tower glowed in a rainbow of colours across the river to our south and all around us skyscrapers were lit up in awesome display. It’s probably second only to Chongqing in terms of the night skylines we’ve been lucky enough to see. Guangzhou will be our final Chinese megacity of this trip and it felt a fitting way to finish this element of our adventures.