I Was Warned NEVER To Do This in China

We're about to do something everyone kept telling us never to do here in China. It's National Week and we're about to travel 11 hours on the train across the country. Wish us luck! Welcome to Kunming South Station. It's actually the 3rd of October today which means we are two days into National Week and the time is 9 30 and in a couple of hours we're going to be getting the train to Xi'an quite a distance across China. We actually booked these tickets about a month ago and as Julia said we were warned not to travel during this week. We did think about cancelling them but at the same time what an experience. What an interesting experience to travel across China during the busiest period and bring you along with us. So far it doesn't look too bad. The station here is actually half empty. We got here horrifically early expecting monstrous queues out the door but no it's been okay. We got in in five minutes and it's nothing like we thought it was going to be thus far. I do have a feeling that maybe later on today that may change a little. Let's see. Honestly we've said it before but train stations here in China especially the high speed rail stations are the size of most airports. So big! What is the most important thing for you during your travels? For us it's the ability to stay connected which is why before arriving to China we downloaded an eSIM from Allafly and why we're incredibly excited to partner with them and share this ultimate travel hack with you. Allafly made our adventures through China so much easier. Their eSIMs are perfect because you can easily download them which saves you the hassle of finding local SIM cards or going through difficult setups. We just activated it before we landed and boom instant 5G connection. The best part is that we have unlimited data throughout our whole stay here in China so we can use all the apps that we're used to back at home and need in our daily life. As well as here in China Allafly offers eSIM data plans in over 200 destinations with seven regional plans and a global plan and unlimited data in over 150 destinations. So no matter where you're planning on traveling next Allafly got you covered. We've been using eSIMs for a while now and every time we've used Allafly they've been incredibly reliable and if you're planning on traveling somewhere and planning to stay connected we've got a special discount for you. Click the link below and use the code Matt and Julia at checkout for five percent discount for your next eSIM with Allafly and thanks Allafly for sponsoring this video and keeping us connected during our travels. Let's continue the journey. So we've actually been in Yunnan province for two weeks now and to be honest we're both a little bit sad to be leaving Yunnan. It's been amazing. We've been to Shangri-La, Lijiang and Kunming. If you haven't seen those videos take a look. Really really beautiful places and yeah we'll definitely be back. This is I think our favorite province in China so far. Yes. Do it. Do it. Which? This. Thank you. Four. Four. Okay. Bye-bye. Nice to meet you. Bye-bye. See you soon. This is us for the next 10 hours. We're just making our first stop. Actually the train is not that busy. There are quite a few empty seats. Maybe it will fill up as we go along. So here we go. We have 11 hours ahead of us as we travel north through China passing through the cities of Chongqing, Chengdu and on to the ancient capital of Xi'an. The journey started off quite quiet but at one point it actually got really really busy. There were lots of people getting on and off at every single station. This was especially noticeable in Chongqing and Chengdu and every train that we traveled on prior to this journey in China had been half empty but this one was completely full for most of the journey. Even though maybe on camera it looks like the 11 hour ride went by pretty quickly it didn't feel that way to us. And to be honest it actually hit us quite hard this time and by the time we arrived in Xi'an we were absolutely shattered. But 11 hours later here we are. I'm not going to lie to you it's the next day. I will lie to you that it's the day after. As soon as we left the train everything was a blur. We got cabbed to the hotel and basically just fell asleep and the day after I thought I got ill. I was literally sweating, everything was aching. But no, this is the reality of taking a very long train journey in your late 20s. It's literally how it affected me. I felt so rough but the good news is it's still the weekend and let's head right into the eye of the tiger. We're gonna walk along one of the main streets here in Xi'an and see what it's like. Welcome to the streets of Xi'an. This actually is a city we've been looking to come to specifically for a very very long time and actually we've been booked to come here on two separate occasions in our lives. Before YouTube a long time ago we actually travelled in South East Asia and prior to going to South East Asia we'd been booked to come to Xi'an but the trip had to change because we couldn't get a visa and then we booked to come again just before Covid and then the obvious happened. So yeah we're finally here, third time lucky and we can't tell you how over the moon we are to finally be here. We're booked to do quite a few things during this next few days including going to see the terracotta warriors which is a bucket list item for both of us. In my opinion what should be one of the wonders of the world. Unofficially called the eighth wonder of the world and yeah so excited but for now let's try and brave the crowds of National Week. A lot of people were telling us specifically to avoid the big big sights in anywhere that we go and I guess I can see why now. As soon as we've turned the corner onto the main street and we're heading towards the bell tower here in Xi'an it's got very busy. I mean it's still bearable and to be honest as I film this behind me there's no one but it is busy. It's probably the busiest we've seen so far in all of our time here in China and we've been here five or six weeks now but yeah not too bad. Not too bad. Bearable. We can breathe. We've got space between us. These candied fruits are sold everywhere throughout China. We had them in Beijing last year. Really really good. They're like small apples right? All kind of things. Small apples, grapes, different berries, lots of things. They're nice. Such a lovely buttery smell. As with everywhere in China anywhere that there's a big sight you see people in traditional clothing taking photos and it's really really beautiful. The fascinating thing is every region we've been to so far the clothing's differed so in Yunnan it was very different here in Xi'an it's very different and in Shanghai too. So so beautiful. People look so gorgeous. So we've just walked up to the Xi'an wall which still to this day surrounds the old city or the city centre on four sides. It's absolutely massive, far bigger than I was expecting. It is so imposing. We'll talk about it more in the next video and we'll probably go for a walk on it because you can actually walk all the way around it but yeah what an incredible incredible sight. So it seems like you can avoid crowds here during the national week however places that are typically busy are crazy busy during that time. Would it be right to assume that? Let's ask people that actually live here and have better experience. Maybe there are specific days or times of the day you would advise people to avoid coming out on the streets? Please let us know in the comments down below. Also one thing we noticed though is that booking hotels during that period of time is a little more expensive than usually. We can't really comment on train prices because we never covered that kind of a distance on the train beforehand so don't know about that. But hotels definitely are a bit more expensive. Yeah so we have been paying on average around 25 pounds a night here in China but this week our hotel cost us around 35 pounds a night so probably another 50 percent or 40 percent more expensive again. Train really don't know. Yeah can't comment on that. One thing we noticed walking around Xi'an straight away it's a little smoggy and I don't know if the clouds are low or is it an autumn thing or is it always like that in Xi'an? Also if you know let us know in the comments below we'd love to find out. The old city is not just surrounded by the wall that we can see behind us but also a moat which goes all the way around the old town parallel to the wall itself and I wanted to say another way to really know that it's national week here in China aside from the amount of people out on the streets are the amount of flags. So on mostly every street we've walked down you'll see flags flying from nearly every shop from a lot of home windows. Another thing we'd really like to know in the comments as well as all the other things we've asked is do the flags come out at every holiday here in China because I know there's a few every year or is it just this week in October? Righty-ho I'm going to join what seems like a pensioner club performing over there and we're gonna leave you here thanks so much for coming along with us as always see in the next video from here in Xi'an can't wait to see terracotta warriors so excited