Unlike most of the world China is following its Covid 0 policy that has served it well the last two years. However unfortunately the last few months have been testing to say the least. After 17weeks of online schooling, 2.5 months of lockdown china style, aka not allowed out at all, we were keen to but not sure if travel would be possible at all this summer.

Dreams of travelling to see family for the first time in over 2 years were dashed due to the complex processes and extortionate flight prices…. We are talking more than a house deposit for one way. Around 35000£ before the costs of the tests and quarantine required. Plus if we caught covid whilst in the UK we would loose all the flight price. We can only wait till end of contract or for china to change its policies to make it easier.

Fortunately the last few weeks things started to opened up in Shanghai and policy’s allowing us to at least travel domestically started to appear. Purely based on covid statistics and policies. We decided to book a trip to Guangxi, the exact policy was unclear but it looked like we could travel without quarantine.

The star which has controlled our movements for the last two years, basically indicating if there was a case in Shanghai was removed from our travel code despite current cases. The change meant that as long as we hadn’t been in a risk area of Shanghai we should be ok to travel….. but …. There is always a but…. Different provinces and hotels and attractions…. Might interpret it differently. We took the gamble and set off at 2:30 in the morning.

Fortunately when we did indeed arrive in Guangxi and were allowed out the airport with only our 24hour test result! There were signs of the current struggle to travel everywhere… our flight was less than a third full, no shops in the airports were open and the queues were all small for China.

A couple of hours in the car we arrived at our destination. There was certainly a mental release when I asked the hotel manager how often we need to test…. He said you don’t! After months of control and constant testing this seemed slightly strange and actually a little unsettling. But these views and the slow chilled pace of life in the longxi rice terraces soon allowed us to settle into the holiday.

The main draw to the area is the hiking and that is our plan!