Intrepid Journeys - China (Katie Wolfe)

Television (Full Length Episode) – 2004

In this full-length Intrepid Journey actor/director Katie Wolfe takes her "appalling sense of direction" to China, a country caught between old ways and new. Wolfe travels by plane, boat, cyclo and train, which she calls "the perfect way to travel". She does three days in the Blade Runner-like cityscapes of Shanghai, where she meets an 86-year-old dancer, and visits the Forbidden City of Beijing. Wolfe also heads up the Yangtze River, visiting ghostly cities and apartment blocks, drained of people by major dam construction — before stumbling upon a most effective way to haggle.

Trains really are the perfect way to travel. I can't help feeling frustrated that we have given away rail travel in NZ. Being able to board a train and sleep and wake up in your destination is such a pleasure.
– Katie Wolfe, in her Chinese travel diary