China's trendy trekkers on new long march
By David Fullbrook
CHENGDU - Young, urban Chinese are shunning tours, shouldering instead a backpack, clutching a train ticket and heading into China's diverse hinterlands, seeking adventure, varied cultures and other traditions away from confining concrete jungles. The emergence of Chinese backpackers is a symptom of China's rapid change that carries significant implications for tourism within China and beyond, especially in Southeast Asia.
Traveling independently, by bus, train, car, four-wheel-drive vehicle and then on foot, most are escaping the frenetic eastern boomtowns, for a few weeks or more. Others hail from the richer provincial cities such as Chengdu and Kunming, heading off for weekends in nearby mountains.
"Young people, especially in the very big cities, have the money to go backpacking," says Xia Chun Peng, 23, a Beijing-based entrepreneur seeking to cash in on backpacking in China. "More and more Chinese are backpacking. Many of my friends realize it's a good way to relax, it's a growing trend."
For many their first trip is just the beginning. "Most of them have just started, but already they're thinking about their next trips," says Sim Kwan Wah, a 40-ish Singaporean, backpacking since 1983. He runs Sim's Cozy Guest House in Chengdu, Sichuan province, with his Japanese wife whom he met on the road in Lhasa, Tibet.
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