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Comment by nroets | Hacker News Reader

All Google products except the Google Translate App are blocked in China. So no Google maps.

I spent 2 months cycling China from Hong Kong to Beijing. Despite only using Chinese characters, Baidu maps worked very well for me. I copied the characters I needed (Hotel, supermarket) into it from the translator.

Here's my journal https://www.cycleblaze.com/journals/5000years

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Regarding the “foreigners can’t stay here”, from what I know, this is because it requires extra work for hotels, they need to report your stay to the local police station, so usually smaller hotels, or the ones in non touristy cities just don’t do that. (And I believe that any tourist, needs to report their address to the local police station within a few days)

Something similar happens in Cuba as well.

There are cheaper places where only locals can go (and till some years ago, also the other way around was true)

Wow, I travelled in Cuba in 2007 and I was completely unaware of this. I was aware of the double economy and how there are some buses that the locals don’t use and vis-versa (same is true in my country; in both cases it is more about price and convenience then access). But hotels for locals only completely missed my attention.

Any info on how you setup your Cuba trip?

I simply flew there from Spain

Yeah I got into one with my Cuban gf and they didn't like my presence so I had to "hide".

Really nice photos, must have been quite the trip!

They work very well via VPN. I used Google's navigation in Shanghai.

Thanks for posting it. Very interesting to read.

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