Guest Column: My Chinese Travel experience

This guest column is written by Jakob Hollander, born in 1942 Veenendaal. He shares his travel adventures in China.

My first journey to China was by train in 2001 with a group of 15 people. We travelled to Beijing and already in the train I had my first experience with Chinese people. I was lucky enough to be invited by some guards in the train (as the only one) to have a meal together. After the meal they gave me Guizhou-Moutai (53%) drink and that marked my first experience with Guizhou.
The train trip was already an experience itself. It was a trip of 5 days. When we stopped at Ulaan Baatar (in Mongolia), I bought postcards and stamps, but the next stop was already in China. That was a problem, as I couldn’t post them because the stamps were not valid in China. Luckily enough, one of the Chinese guards, whom I sealed a friendship with through a Moutai drink, wanted to help by posting my postcards on his next journey to Mongolia. In another country I had the experience that the cards “went missing”. It was said that people would take the stamps and sold them. To my joy, my cards arrived in Holland after a half year.