The Forbidden City!

I could tell you about the history of the Forbidden City, but frankly I cant be arsed and there is a very good guide that tells you all about it.

Anyway the Forbidden City was opened by Mao after the Cultural Revolution, previously everyone was Forbidden to enter the city (funny - wonder how it got its name) unless you were royalty. Apparently (and I forget where I got this stat from) but there were over 5000 ladies of the night who lived in the grounds, its seems that the Emperors were pretty horny people.

The city is huge and unfortunately because its low season the main temples were being revamped. However we managed to see quite a lot of the outsides of the temples ... the highlight of the city however was the Starbucks which graced the grounds with Mochas. I was nearly tempted in buying a coffee but managed to avoid it. I wonder if they will do a Maocha (sorry couldnt resist.)

So thats it for the Forbidden Temple there are two main temples which we saw the Temple of Heaven and then Temple of Earth. These two temples represent the Ying (I believe Heaven) and the Yang (Earth) with a small Temple of Calmness inbetween the two.

I will leave the photos to do the rest of the talking.

The Incident with the English Students and the Teahouse

Beijing first day, though I would take a wonder about and discover the place. I headed for the main shopping area WahnFangHui District.

Firstly I was looking for some new books and then stumbled upon the imaginatively titled "Foreign Import Bookshop" - probably a good place to look for English books I thought. The selection was pretty good though a little stunted, however I picked up another Rough Guide to Mandarin, Lonely Planet Thailand, Douglas Adams - Salmon of Doubt and Ghost Wars.

Making my way into the main shopping area, I got accosted by a so called English student who wanted me to visit an Art Gallery. After fobbing her off I continued my way, this would not be my last encounter with the Chinese "English Student".

Five minutes after setting foot in the mall (shopping arcade for the British) I was approached by another two studens. Of course because of my friendly manner I chatted to them for about an hour, they followed me about and eventually they started to talk about the art gallery. I said Ok and that I would go and see their work but wouldnt be buying anything as I didnt have room in my backpack.

So off we went, I was introduced to their teacher and had a look through the paintings, it was all very nice but like I said I wasnt going to buy anything. After a few more attempts they gave up and we wandereed about the mall again.

The mall is very impressive and it amazed me that all the shops were so stylish and very expensive, Audi, Rolls Royce and all the typical designer shops littered the mall. I bid farewell to the couple and thought that would be the last it.

Thirty minutes later, "Hi, where are you from?". Two girls started chatting asking questions they wanted to go for a drink and chat to practice. They tried to guide me to a tea room, (fortunately I friend Dick had been scammed and told me all about it - Thanks Dick!) I said that I didnt fancy tea and could we go somewhere else. Anyway we went somewhere else and as I sat down I realised that we were in another tea room. I ordered a coke and the girls had some tea and nibbles. We continued to chat and eventually it came time to leave, I was presented with a bill for 350 yuan (about 30 pounds). I told them there was no way that I was going to pay that for 2 cokes. They broke down the charges which included 40 yuan for 2 cokes, 100 yuan for some nuts and the rest was for the tea. I gave them 50 yuan and said that was all they were going to get. The owner then comes along and starts screaming at me in Chinese - trying to be very imposing. I calmly tell that she can scream and shout all she wants, she wasnt going to get anymore money out of me. (I dont think she understood). At this point I realised that the girls were in on it as they were being very quiet and not getting involved at all , I asked them to help which they didnt really. I put 50 yuan on the table and stood up the owner picked it up and threw it down like it was a piece of dirt, again shouted at me. As I walked past she grabbed me and then let go as she realised it wasnt going to help.

The two girls then paid 100 yuan each and the women still wasnt happy, I said to them dont pay and walked out. On the way down I asked them why they paid the money and told them that I was sorry that they paid.... I said goodbye and walked on.. it was time to go home.....

Beijing

As soon as I step into the cubicle I knew that I was back in civilisation, no more crouching to use the facilities... bliss.

Beijing as you'd expect is an impressive place from the sky, after landing it was a simple, and I use the word loosely journey to the Downtown Backpackers. I would have been able to use the word simple if I had a good map from the hostel. I did try - but the Internet failed me.

Anyway so after a 20 minute walk and just going on my natural instincts I stumbled over the hostel.

I've been looking forward to Beijing, give me a chance to get over the Yak Burgers, Yak Steak, Yak Butter Tea and Yak milk and indulge on KFC, Mcdonalds and Pizza Hut.

Also I can finally start to plan Thailand as its getting a bit close and I have no idea where I am going to go... well apart from Bangkok. This will give my girlfriend confidence as she is coming out to visit for 2 weeks.

Anyway tomorrow I'm off to buy some books and scout out the city!

Photo Caption Competition

I am slowly catching up with my blog - Currently in Beijing (arrived 5 days ago) and today I saw this traffic sign.

I thought it was rather funny and starting thinking of some captions, post your captions in the comment field. The best one will get something from Beijing... something good.

Mine was "No suicide bombers here..."

Tibet Trek #1 - Day 2

We arose from the night sleep at about 9:00. The start to the day was amazing that night I had not realised that the window from the room overlooked the mountains and I was greeted with a beautiful sunrise. Unfortunately the window was too dirty to take a photo .. sorry!

We were told that there was a big festival that day in Reting but when we went to check it out, there was no sign that the festival was going to be starting soon. So we decided to set off for Drepung and then the Tildrum Springs.

The scenary on the way was awe inspiring with the most amazing mountains and blistering sunshine. We passed through crazy rocky tracks along the electric blue rivers that continue down into to China to form the Yangtze River.

After stopping off at a small cafe and having some really good pork with mushrooms (pingo in tibetian) we arrived at Drepung Monstary. The first thing that you pick up on is a sign saying that Sky Burial sites were sacred and foreigners could not visit them, this is as part of the governments protection of minority cultures (sic). I had not heard of sky burials and in case you havent either... heres a little lesson (its not the nicest topic and skip the next paragraph to miss the explanation).

The Sky Burial is a Buddist method of burial and provides the recycle loop for the body to be reused. Basically a family friend hacks the body to bits and is left for the birds to consume. In Buddist religion the body is an empty vessal and the soul has gone on to bigger and better things so the friend cannot show any remorse.

Drepung Monstary is pretty impressive as it sits on the side of a mountain at 4500m overlooking the the small village below. We spoke with the local head monk who greeted us and who I later thanked for having us and shook the monks hand and then realised it was someone completely different (this explained the look of bewildment).

We were now heading to the highlight- Tidrum Springs. I had been talking about the going to some springs since I arrived and these had been suggested by the tour company. I was looking forward to sitting in an Onsen like bath as I had got used to in Japan, especially now that we hadnt showered for a day or 2.

We arrived down a very hilly track - I was convinced that we were going to drive over the edge. But we arrived safely and grab our bags and made it to the hostel. On arrivedal we were showed two rooms the first one didnt look that great until we saw the second one which had more mold and no windows. We choose the best out of a bad bunch and thought ah well we'll go and see the hot springs.

Now I am not sure if you would understand unless you have been travelling but we have got used to being a bit of a celebrity on our trek and people just end up staring at you for example. When we arrived in Tidrum this bloke just came and stood at the doorway to the room and stared at us, watching what we are doing. I guess you get used to it but the thought of being butt naked and having the locals all stare at me, made me think I might not relax as much as I should. This coupled with the fact that the once we walked further around the grounds of the Nunnary the place wasnt the cleanest, with all sorts of rubbish and sewage being put in the river further upstream.

That brings me to the toilets... now sorry, I dont mean to be too detailed but these toilets were the worse toilets I have ever seen, actually they were also the worst toilets Joe and Kate had seen too - it basically stank and there was sh*t everywhere. I really hope I didnt have to properly use the facilities!

Instead, we settled for going for some food and listening to Joe play his guitar... after some Yak Noodles and then Joe being told that he was too loud we decided to retire early, listen to some music and laugh about our situation.

3am - I wake up in pain and think its ok I will be in Lhasa in 10 hours ... just hold on.
4am - I wake up in more pain ..... think its ok I will be in Lhasa in 9 hours ... just hold on.
5am - I wake up in even more pain ..... think its ok I will be in Lhasa in 8 hours ... just hold on.
6am - I wake up in even more pain ..... think its ok I will be in Lhasa in 7 hours ... just hold on.
7am - I wake up... oh no gonna have to use the unthinkable toilets.....
8am - feeling a little better....

And so my second bout of food poisoning kicks in and to be honest I dont have much more to talk about before we got back to Lhasa....

Tibet Trek Day 1

We had arranged for a 4x4 (just in case you dont know I hate 4x4's but have to admit we needed it this time!) to come and drive us for a 3 day trek.

We were going North to Nam Tso lake and then onto Reting Monistory, Dripung Monistory and Tidrum Hot Springs then stopping back in Lhasa before going to Samye Monistory.

Picked up in a 70s retro Toyoto Landcruiser we head towards Nam Tso. Nam Tso is 4700m above sea level and reached via a mountain pass which goes up to 5100m. It was a beautiful day and our driver seemed pretty chilled out for a Tibetian. The only worrying thing about the 4x4 was the lack of seatbelts in the front and back ... I thought best not worry about it.

The journey was 4 hrs and as we started up the pass the driver was already not sounding positive. I at the time thought he was a bit of a wuss for being worried. (I have driven a 2 wheel drived Citroen C5 through much worse conditions in Chamonix!). Anyway as we reached the top he pulled over, cars in front were turning around (all wusses together) and we stopped took a few photos of the blizzard and then turned back. As we drove further down the visibility reached about 5m and my thoughts on him being a wuss disappeared too. The difference between roads in Tibet and those in France is that the french roads are marked out ... the Tibetian ones aren't. Anyway after a slow decent we decided to push on to Reting.

The road to Reting ... well its not really a road its a track (and thats even a grand title) which even makes Leeds roads look good (Leeds has some pretty terrible roads) with some crazy sized rocks, streams and potholes to avoid/go through.. to be fair the driver was excellent, doing some nice little slides to keep us from toppling .. it was the most fun part of the trip. However the journey was gruelling with 5hrs of offroad tracking to go through it was really painful on the arse.

We arrived at Reting and were shown our room... a dirty, unheated box with more muck on the beds than outside. We put our stuff down and made for the only warm room in the complex, the restaurant. Here we were introduced to Yak Butter Tea ... ah how I love Yak. Actually it was pretty nice and after saying Tashi Delik ("Hello" in Tibetian) to every man and his dog (speaking of dogs - if you go to Tibet, don't touch the monistory dogs.. they look evil for a reason) we left to go and look round the monistory temples.

Joe and Kate got the camera out and started snapping. Its funny watching people have their photos taken there are 3 types.

1. Those that really don't want their photos taken
2. Those that pretty they don't want their photo taken but keep ending up in shot
3. Those that really do want their photo taken, such that they keep badgering for another photo.

We went into the Temple and were greeted by the head monk, blessing everyone and putting pray flags over their heads... it was an amazing site and filled with so much atmosphere.

Leaving the temple we walked round, smiling and greeting everyone, it was great you felt like a popstar (and the Tibetian girls (and ok the boys too) were gorgeous (dont worry babes - I was well behaved!) - Joe reminded me that I would probably get killed or married if I tried anything.) ... more photos were taken and we went back to the "restaurant".

More Yak butter tea and another game of chess lost to Joe - Kate and I had some noodles, which were pretty darn good.

After Joe wowed the kids with his guitar playing for about 10 mins the power died and we decided to call it a day.

Now the next sentence is gonna sound a bit pathetic but the beds werent the best. The great thing with my sleeping bag is that it can form a cocoon around your whole body so that none of you touches the bed that your sleeping on... this is great if your worried about bed bugs etc.

Whilst we got ourselves ready, Kate discovered that if you rubbed the sleeping bags you could make a little electrostatic lightshow due to the lack of moisture in the air (its great fun and fully recommend you try it when the conditions are right!). After a few minutes of electric-shocking myself I decided to go to sleep...

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Lhasa, Tibet

We arrived into Lhasa Tibet, 3 english and one german. The first thing that hits you when you get to Tibet is the fact that as soon as you do any exercise you are knackered.

The reason being that you are now 3600m (give our take a few meters) we picked up our baggage and after a lengthy bit of haggling we managed to get a taxi to Lhasa for 35 yuan each... bargain!

We arrived at the Yak hotel and booked in....

Joe wasnt feeling too good and neither was Johanus, my advice to anyone who does come to Tibet, just chill out for the first 3 days. Fortunately I was ok and to be honest Joe thinks it was a combination of Jet lag and Altitude sickness... I just think its his poor genes ;)

We went out for food to the Tengelink Cafe which ended up being our haunt and had some amazing Nepalise food (apparently)... anyway it was good, the best I food I had in mainland China.

We then wandered around the Bakhor Square which is amazing and full of life with everyone smiling and looking at you as you look in awe back, a great feeling. Joe and Kate took some amazing photos which I will be trying to steal and put on the sight when I can.

....

The first few days were pretty non-eventful, wandering about getting our bearings was the most important thing and eating properly of course. Joe and Kate had been talking about an IMAX film called Everest a few days before and funily enough I was told this was showing at a local bar by another German fella, Mattaus. If you get the chance to watch this film then do so its amazing and I will be looking out to see if its going to be showing in the local IMAX theatre in Bradford on my return home.

We also managed to get our trip booked for Tibet taking in NamTso and some various monstaries, I am looking forward to Nam Tso lake, the pictures look amazing. The lake will be frozen but it will still look great. The only problem is that you have to go via a high pass road which may mean that we are not able to get there because of the snowy conditions. Hopefully that wont be the case... we'll see. The best part is that we got the whole thing for 3000 yuan which is a pretty good price about 1600 yuan off.

Chengdu with Pandas and food that tastes like meat but isnt meat.

Chengdu is famous for its Giant Panda Breeding Centre (you have all heard of it - haven't you?) and also for its food.

I wandered around Chengdu, trying to find a book store with no success. Chengdu is like an western city, BMW drivers trying to run you down, everyone shopping... I did forget for a bit that I was in China. (Well not really as there were loads of Chinese who kept staring at me but hopefully you get what I mean.)

I tried the Chinese rival to Starbucks, called Goodwood Cafe - blew Starbucks out of the water, amazing service and great coffee!

Kate and Joe both arrived at Sims in the evening. Joe had flown from London -> Shanghai -> Chengdu.. was pretty tired but we persuaded him that it was his best interest to not go to bed and come and get some food. Now some of you will know Kate and others wont, but Kate is a really good cook and loves her food. (Not in that way that people say someone is fat..). So we went for the Chengdu local speciality (which name escapes my mind - something like Ma Po Fo). Its basically tofu in a chilli sauce, I didnt rate it to be honest and preferred the other dishes including twice cooked pork with veg.

We went back to Sims and K/J got an early night as Joe was knackered.

Chengdu is also one of the points to fly to Lhasa, Tibet from and we needed to get our trip sorted out. Depending on who you talked to you could either get a permit or you couldnt.. after a bit of scouting out by Kate. We found that we could get a permit from Mix's Guesthouse for 2000 yuan (about 160 pounds, afterwards we found that if you went to Sams Guesthouse you could get one for 1900 yuan.).

The permit would take 2 days to sort out and we were going to fly in the morning (7:30) which meant a 5:30 start.. ouch!

After getting the permits sorted out we wandered to the park and drank tea for the afternoon.
On our way back we had heard about this Buddist Restaurant in the Wuzhou Temple. We ordered a load of food and when it arrived I realised that Roast Duck wasnt really Roast Duck but tofu with natural flavours... it was amazing all the food tasted really good and looked good (see the pics).

The next day we had an early start to go and see the Pandas, basically you have to get there early as they are fed at about 9:30. They are lazy gits and by the time they have eaten their food they go to sleep!
We got a bus out there and paid the 30 yuan entrance fee.. the pandas were, well they were pretty big and not that energetic. It was good to see but we didnt spend too much time there. We walked around all the areas, including the much more lively Red Pandas and went back to Chengdu.

That night we went out for Hotpot with friends who I had met the night before. I have to say everyone rants about hot pot.. but it was a pain in the arse. Basically you get given a hot pot divided into two sections one with a chilli sauce and another with fish heads and spices. You buy bits of meat, veg etc.. and then cook them yourself in the boiling sauces. The chilli sauce was too hot and I kept over cooking everything...

I ended staying up late and watching this really funny B movie called Spiders.. it was bad but good and although I was getting up at 5:00 to go to Tibet, I had to watch it through. Basically the american military are experimenting with deadly mutanted spiders in space, needless to say one of them escapes and its left for a journalist and her two sidekicks to save the day.... brillant!

Woke up a bit tired but excited about the trip to Tibet, we picked up Jonhan from another hostel and caught the plane to Lhasa.....

Trip to Chengdu

So caught the 8:30 bus to Jijiang ... it was full and cramped, though thats cool as I only have to be on the bus for 10hrs.
There are two types of bus in China, the national bus company and then privately owned express buses.. the express buses are generally a lot more comfortable, the bus belonged to the national bus company.

The scenary though on the journey was stunning.. stupidly I didnt take any pictures.. sorry. We drove from Lijiang east over the mountain range. The bus was driving along roads with 1000m plus drops down one side... the worrying thing was that the bus had to be stopped on regular occasions to cool the brakes down! Apparently this is normal......

Anyway after dropping people off a few times I started to panic thinking that I had missed my stop. Asking the women behind me if this was my stop (by pointing to my ticket) she nodded and I got off the bus... immediately taxi touts tried to get my bags and put them in their taxi. I nearly went with one and the bus driver just shouted at me.. "Lets go!" and I got back on the bus and we continued on. After reading my Rough Guide again, it said the bus actually stopped outside the station.... and it did.

I got to the train station and into the ticket office, got a hard sleeper train ticket for Chengdu. There are a number of classes for the train, soft sleeper and hard sleeper ... I wanted soft but couldnt get any money out of the ATMs.

Wandering around the town I bought some food and then got a few supplies for the journey.

There is something about the staff at train stations, they are power crazy. Whilst minding my own business awaiting the train, this women came over checked my ticket and told me to start walking right. I guess this was to get me at the right place for the carriage.. anyway I continued to walk looked back and she motioned to keep walking. I did... the train arrived and lo and behold the carriage stopped exactly where I had been standing... I swore at her and carried all my stuff back to where I had originally been.

Whilst in the line she had the ordasity to shout at me with her megaphone to get in line... I being the stubborn sod took a step further out of line and she left it .. one to me!

The carriages are quite different to anything I had experienced before with each booth having 6 beds (3 on each side). Because I was being the English gentleman I let everyone through and helped people with their bags... I ended getting the top bunk.

The beds were pretty comfy and finished my book that I started on the bus. (John Irvine - Widow for a Year - which is excellent and definately worth reading! I could rant about this book but wont. I hadnt really heard of John Irving but a certain someone has been going on about him for a while so I thought I best check some of his work out.. needless to say that certain someone was right and he is a great author.).

14hrs later... we arrived in Chengdu... I think I have already mentioned before how its really bad to get to a new town without knowing where the hostel your staying is.. well I didnt know.

After about 3 hrs of hunting for an Internet cafe, I found one and then realised that Sims Cosy Guesthouse was about 2km from where I was... bugger. I walked back and followed my badly drawn map... after about 20mins of wandering around I passed a load of chinese street restaurants and there was Sims.

Bam, Bam... back in Lijiang

We managed to get this lovely Naxi woman to drive us back to Lijiang... all of us were pretty tired and had hangovers after one to many drinks at Seans.

Tonight was the last night with Dick, Mike and Rich about so we thought we'd better go out. Both Kate and I fancied some Western food and were told about the Frosty Morning... funnily enough its run by a English and Chinese couple and the English guy is from Castleford (not far from where I live!).

After eating my steak in about 2 mins flat we had a few drinks and started chatting to a couple behind us.

Fully recommend the bar, its a bit expensive but the food is great and has everything you need for a good night out. A few others who were staying at Mamas joined us, including the lads and we all proceeded to get a bit tipsy.

After our previous defeat in the singing contest and with new found friends we decided to take on the chinese again. With high spirits and a case of beer we wandered to the river...

The singing may not have been brillant but we sang classics (well I mumbled a lot of them - no idea on the lyrics!) such as beatles - hey jude, yellow submarine ... yankey doodle and the others which we had done before. Anyway after we got some backup from the 3 girls from the bar behind us (who covered us whilst we were thinking up the next random song) we realised victory and sprayed beer at our competitors!

.. Great night.

The next day we decided to hire some bikes and make our way to Baishu. Kate cleverly got the bus and I got bikes with the boys. After about 20mins we got lost and went down the wrong road. Realising our mistake we went back on ourselves and then Mike and Rich (who thought it would be fun to get a tandem - and it was for about 20mins!) had a puncture...

We proceeded to ride with the back tire getting flatter and flatter... after some failed attempts to get a pump this chinese local women, let us borrow her pump. Its at times like this that you realise how generous people are... the tire was pumped and away we went .. unfortunately the tire was flat 10mins later and so we walked to the next village.

We didnt really know where we were but walked north and Rich managed to score a ride for the bikes on one of these vehicles with an engine on the front and trailer on the back. Getting all of the bikes (apart from mine as I wanted the exercise) we made our way to Baishu. Not realising we went through Baishu and to a house where everyone was playing Mai Jong. Its a pretty nice life in the Chinese countryside, no one seems to work and everyone seems to play Mai Jong or Chinese Chess...

Rich and I left the boys back for Baishu to go and meet the infamous Doctor Ho (I didnt know who he was until I met him). We arrived and were met by the Doc, a really friendly chap who makes a Cure-All tea. He is amazing at marketing himself and proceeded to handover reams of letters and articles about him and his tea. Michael Palin met him whilst doing his Himalayas trek along with John Cleese... the tea wasnt bad.. though John Cleese didnt seem to think so and had written "Nice Bloke, Crap Tea"... a bit harsh!

At the time my girlfriend, Lauren wasnt too well so I bought some of the tea and bid farewell.

Lijiang has some amazing shopping with lots of bargains to be had. Kate and I spent the next day wandering round the shops... I bought a few bits and pieces and the area is renowed for its jewellery.. unfortunately I didnt think any of it was that great. (Sorry babes!)

We were meeting Joe in 2 days in Chengdu .. and it was time to organise travelling. Kate was going to get the bus down to Kumming and then fly up. Me being on a budget went for a bus which went east to Jinjiang so that I could catch the train to Chengdu...

Anyway I shall leave you with some pictures and also there is some video footage from the singing competition...

The Tiger Leaping Gorge

The Tiger Leaping Gorge is named after it was said that a Tiger leapt from one side of the gorge to the other side. Anyway regardless of the likelyhood of this happening the Gorge is amazing in both its name and scenary.

We got a deal through Mama Naxi to get to the Gorge without having to pay the 50 yuan entrance fee. Feeling a little bit like the SAS we got in the back of a blacked out Suzuki MPV and drove to one of the tracks of the gorge.

Walking through the gorge was amazing though as we walked further the views got better. Our plan was to stop off at the Naxi Family Guesthouse which is only 2hrs walk from the start. Stay there the night and then walk the gorge to Sean's Guesthouse in the Walnut Garden.

So off we walked, it was quite late by the time we got going which to be fair was a godsend as it was hot enough at 4pm, no idea what it would have been like at 12-1pm. We arrived at the Naxi Guesthouse and had a warm welcome from the owners... sat down and basically ate and drank... something that was becoming a bit of a common scenario.

Dick, Mike and Rich taught me and Kate how to play Chinese Chess which is a pretty amazing game and much faster than traditional English Chess.... after a few more beers we went to bed - ready for tomorrows trek.

The original plan was to wake up about 6:30 to get going early though our hosts just looked at us in horror and suggested breakfast at 7:30. To be honest I wasnt going to argue...

We had breakfast and left for the 28 bends which is the worst part of the trek and I'd be glad to get this out of the way early. The bends were a blo*dy nightmare and all of us where sweating buckets. Fortunately the sun wasnt out and the temperature was nice and cool... making up to the top of the bends felt like such an achievement and the views just about made up for the hardwork. However we still had some 6-7 hours treking to go...

We stopped off at the Horse Guesthouse, had some food and tea and made our way towards Halfway which was about 3 hrs away. The scenary just kept getting better, a couple passed us in the other direction, they werent too friendly but then they were carrying full on backpacks and I just thought they were mad and could understand there lack of talking energy!

Snaking through to Halfway gave us more amazing scenary but by this time we were all starting to get tired - especially noted by the way that you start stubbling over rocks... finally we made it to Halfway and had some food and of course some tea.

At this point a lad from Australia arrived, this boy had been charging through the trek and had caught us up in about half the time we had taken!

We left for Seans, one thing that is bad about the gorge is the amount of grafitti that litters the rock faces, some of the messages are fair enough but a lot are just a waste the two main offenders are Woody and Tina .. its a shame that this is allowed to happen. The other bad thing is the amount of litter that is dropped on the tracks especially in some areas there are mounds of rubbish dumped over the side.. its a real shame to see how this place is being treated.

Through a waterfall and then back down the hill we trapsed to Tinas ... this I thought was worse than the 28 bends as your knees take a real pounding as you are walking down the hill... we stopped at Tinas for some more food and tea and then walked along the road to Seans.

The total trip was about 8 hrs and it felt amazing to get there....... though that wasnt the end.

We had heard that you could walk down to the Middle Gorge to the riverside. The guys had been talking about why people didnt do white-water rafting through the gorge.. the walk was supposed to be about 1hr 30mins.

We left at about 16:30 and made our way down. Going over wooden bridges and down ladders with pretty high drops down the side (see pics!) eventually making it down to the bottom and the rock that the infamous tiger leapt over the gorge from. Its funny because we were doing the path backwards we would read signs saying how dangerous the path was ... only after we had been through the dangerous part.

This part of the walk was the most impressive, walking crouched down though paths that had been dug into the side of the rock face .. really felt like you were going an adventure.

The way back was either up a 40ft ladder or via another path which took you back up to Tina. Kate and I both looked at each other and decided on the other path, the ladder looked pretty dodgy and to be honest I wanted to enjoy the rest of my trip. We left the other lads on the rocks and started the long walk back up the cliff. The height must have been 800m and it was a pretty steep climb.

After a bit of wrong turn we were making good progress up the cliff.. each time looking over the side to see how far up.. by this point the sun was setting and it was getting dark.

We made it up to the top in the nick of time and then realised that we still had a fair trek back to Sean's. Thanks to Kate we got a few lifts back including one from the owner of Tinas guesthouse, who didnt seem to impressed that werent staying at his....

Anyway we got a bus back the next day after a heavy night at Seans ... I'll let the pictures do the talking.

Please note that one of the paths was completed on my birthday!!

Kumming & Lijiang

Now getting into the travelling spirit.. so after getting of the plane I was determined to make it to Kumming Bus Station for my connection to Lijiang. Without getting an "expensive" taxi from the airport.

So after a bit of a chat with the local travel service who pointed me in the wrong direction for the bus stop .. I saw the no 52 bus into town. The bus a bargain 1 yuan as opposed to 25-35 yuan, got the bus - superb! No idea where I was to get off but with the my trusty Rough Guide map - I couldnt go far wrong.

Driving towards Kumming was cool, though there was a bit of a smell from these guys feet next to me... I just thought ah well, its not too bad and wont be long till I get off. I kept looking out for roads that I could recognise on the map and after seeing one and thinking whether I should get off it was too late and were driving in completely the wrong direction.

The bus emptied and the guy moved across to the other side of the bus... unfortunately it was then I realised that the smell was still there and it way my feet and he had moved as far away as possible from me. Mental note, dont wear socks for 4 days straight.... I thought to myself.

Anyway ended up in the arse end of nowhere, no maps and my rough guide had a helpful arrow off the side of the map that said the west bus station was over here. Time to get some help, so went into the bus stations drivers room and this lady told me to get the 54 and to get off at soin, so... I took her advice and was going back into the main center. She even told the bus driver where to drop me off.. so 10mins later back on the streets. I then decided to just get a taxi as the walk was quite a way.

At this point I had no-idea whether you could get a bus to Lijiang at this time. I arrived in the bus stop and was immediately met by about 20 touts all asking me Dali, Lijiang... I said Lijiang and put up a bit of a fight to chat to the official bus company they said, go with them and I did. Next thing I know Im on a bus and lying down in a little bed - ready for Lijiang.

10 hours later and at 5:30am we arrive in Lijiang... get off the bus - loads of touts, fight through them and then start trying to find an Internet cafe. I am meeting Kate here and we are staying somewhere, but I dont know where yet.

Have some food and find the Internet Cafe, the place we are staying is called Mama Naxi's Guesthouse, after a 2hr walk about and asking countless people I phone up Mamas and they come and find me.

The place is brillant, Mama Naxi and Papa Naxi give me food and bananas before I have time to sit down. You feel really at home.

2 lads also arrive from Dali and they mention that a girl told them about this place, I said I bet her name was Kate and they laughed and said your Simon are you?.. These guys (Dick and Mike we'd end up travelling about with.

Lijiang is a beautiful place, I was amazed by it to be honest. Its divided into two parts, old town and new town... the old town has been recently rebuilt due to a recent earthquake and all the traditional Naxi buildings survived the earthquake. Unlike the more modern buildings so the local government decided to rebuild in the same traditional style.

From here you can go on a trek to the Tiger Leaping Gorge, which we booked for the following day.

We decided to all go out and have a few drinks, of course one drink lead to another and we ended up getting involved in this tradition of singing across a stream that runs through the old town. Basically each team on each side of the stream takes it in turns to sing songs and try and out do the other side. Of course we took this on and found ourselves (4 westerners) battling against 30-40 locals... it was great fun. Such classics as bah, bah black sheep, twinkle, twinkle little star were busted out.... unfortunately we ran out of tunes and they were still going. We got beer sprayed over us being the losers but we vowed to get our revenge later on.

Staggering back to the hostel was pleasant and went to bed....

YangShou (the home of the tout)

Well my introduction to Yangshou was a bit of a nightmare to be honest. I arrived pretty late about 10:00 or so and basically got badged by a middle aged women and a young bloke. Ended up giving in and went to see there hotel. Got a bargain to be honest 50 yuan for a double room but it didnt stop there.

Yangshou is famous because it has these crazy hills (see photo) - not really sure how they formed as the guy who gave the tour couldnt speak english. But I reckon it was glacial... (wouldnt put money on my thoughts..). Anyway got the tour at what I thought was a bargain of 150 ... Robert the owner of Golden Prosperus Hotel started at 210. Anyway it wasnt a bargain and I could have got the tour for 40... ouch!
Ah well you win some and you lose some but of course those that know me, know that the fight isnt finished yet. I shall be getting revenge in a very unbuddist way, but also at least then others wont get ripped off either... which will be the aim of my revenge.

So winding forward and forgetting the Golden Prosperus Hotel incident, I was escorted on the back of Roberts bike to the start of the tour. Whilst I was being escorted Robert, Rob or Robbing Thieving **stard as I like to call him tried to sell me a cave tour again at the bargain of 150 and also suggested that we could go out and pick up some girls. How was that he put it? Oh yeah for some fu*ky, fu*ky.. made me laugh... and no doubt at a bargain price too!

So the boat cruise was amazing, the hills are incredible - never seen anything like it just really steep mounds coming straight of the ground... no sign of earthquakes or anything like that... the scenary was breath taking and also it was cool cause met my first westerners for a while too. Rick and Claire were on their way back from living in Australia to get married in the UK. Good luck you two, anyway it was good fun and they were a sound bunch.

After the cruise we ended up meeting up for beer fish.. which is basically beer and fish in a big wok. The flavours are amazing and it got pretty spicy but definately worth going for .. the restaurant even lets you pick your own fish!!

I moved to another guesthouse called Lisa's which was pretty nice and even more of a steal than the Golden ... hotel.. nice atmosphere with the obligotory guitars playing - everyone sat around chatting.

I also had a few problems with trying to get out of Yangshou and ended up having to book a flight and stay an extra day.. not really too much of a problem as it would allow me to get a bit of exercise and go for a bike ride. The airplane ticket was a bit more pricey at 800 yuan instead of a 24hr train/bus journey for 220 .. but then it did take 1 hr 30mins. Also I would be able to catch my friend Kate (who is one part of the infamous Kate and Joe) in Lijiang.

So went out for the bike ride, on a bike that didnt really like to stop.. it did stop well for a while and then decided after I had ridden a while that it wasnt going to stop so easily. This made for some interesting bike, car, truck crash scenarios.. fortunately I didnt get involved in any.

Whats great about the bike is that you can go anywhere so I decided to find a place called Moon Hill - after leaving without a map and no idea of where Moon Hill was... I gave up and just started to ride down muddy tracks. Then you start to see the real China, going through the villages and seeing how everyone lives. It was amazing... I got lost a few times and the locals seemed to be quite amused about how I went past a few times... but it was great. I even raced one of these mad trucks which basically has an engine strapped to the front. (I will post a picture later on!). I was doing well and did end up overtaking it up a hill... though then realised that it was stopping at the top of the hill..

Anyway I rushed back to get the plane from Guilin which is an hours bus journey from YangShou and made it with about 4 mins to spare.

Got a taxi in Guilin to the airport after a bit of searching for a bus.. made it to the check-in desk with 1 min to spare and on to the plane without a tanoy call. (Mr B and Mr M - you'd have been impressed!).

... then it was off to Kumming...

Wuzhou (pronounced WoohJoe)

So a few hours North West of ZhaoXing is Wuzhou. The only reason that I wanted to visit the place was due to a snake farm(Sorry Ciara!) that I read about in the Rough Guide.

I arrived at the bus station and got the typical laowai welcome but I knew where I was going. This town doesn't get many foreigners and I got lots of looks which you just have to smile to and say Nee How (Hello). Also a guy came and started to chat to me saying that he was head of a language school... I didnt think too much about it.

I found my hotel and started to sort out a room... no bargaining was possible which was a little annoying but as I started to book the room another Chinese guy came in and said hello and started helping me out. Seemed like a nice chap, owned an English school across the way and wanted to have a drink. I was famished so I suggested food ... went up to his english club first and had a chat.

Anyway he asked if I could help him delivery some leaflets .. I thought "why not?". Anyway I told him about the snake farm and so we mixed the advertising and snake farm. So got some food and then jumped into this rickshaw which Su Chi Tian had hired. It was funny as we sat in the back of the rickshaw and said Nee How to everyone, we were able to get quite a crowd all interested in what this laowai was giving out.

I was getting quite excited about the snake farm and as we got dropped off and walked up through the entrance, it was looking rather dead... actually the buildings were looking a bit worse for wear. This women came over and told us that the central government had closed the farm, I was gutted but to be fair the reasoning was pretty cool. The government said that if the farm could generate its own snakes rather than taking from natural then the farm could re-open.... bit of forward thinking .. fairplay... though no snakes. (Bet your happy about that Ciara!).

On the way back to the rickshaw, I suggested that it would be funny if I could drive the rickshaw... after nearly crashing about 4 times the driver showed me where the breaks were and I got myself more comfortable. We handed out a shedload of leaflets and after the driver told me that I wasnt skillful I took the rickshaw fast through a load of traffic which sh*t him up and he took it back. ;)

It seemed that word had got round that an english bod was in town and Chi Tian stared getting a few calls and he asked me if I didnt mind speaking at an english class. I said why not ... I didnt have anything else to do...

So that night we got a taxi to a school, I thought there would be say 10-20 people and it would be a night class type affair. Anyway I arrived and was met by Linda and plonked infront of 20-30 giggling schoolgirls. It was great fun - they tried to get me to sing but I couldn't think of any songs.

What amazed me was how good their english was, we had a few moments where they didnt get me or I didnt get them but generally I was very impressed. Hello Linda and the girls!

Anyway it was a long day and after buying a painting from the local artist, who I have to say was amazing it was time for bed.

Next the trip to YangShao....