Changsha, Changde, Jishou, and Zhangjaijie
From the names of the cities, I’m sure you can guess we were in China. We are actually back in Hong Kong now to see my mom off (back to Canada) but I’ll fill you in on our 6 day tour in China. This tour was with my mom, my aunt from Hong Kong, and my aunt and uncle from Melbourne and we were on one of those bigger tours (30 people) where we had to follow the tour guide who carries a little flag for us to follow. John and I usually laugh at the people on these tours so it’s a little ironic that we end up on one of them. We even had little button pins that we wore to identify which tour group we were with. Anyway, here’s a quick synopsis of the places we went to these past 6 days:
Changsha
Changsha was basically the place where we flew to and from Hong Kong. It has a tiny little airport but the city appears to be growing and preparing for more tourists and what not. However, there is still a lot of construction going on so it’s not quite a tourist destination yet. The only saw 2 things in Changsha. One was a place where Mao used to conduct his political “stuff”. I guess Mao was born here and they considered it his hometown so he spent quite a bit of time here. The other place that we saw was one of what used to be the four best colleges waaaayyyyy back in the day. This college was built over 1000 years ago. It isn’t active now but they keep it open for tourists. It’s actually a pretty nice campus; there are lots of trees and really nice gardens. There’s also a little temple dedicated to confucious which was pretty cool. That’s about all we saw in Changsha though.
Changde
There also wasn’t too much to see in Chengde… and I’m going to have to apologize ahead of time: The descriptions of these places might be kind of vague because the tour was in Chinese and my Chinese is “ok” at best. You can imagine how much of the tour John understood… heh heh… although, I will admit, his Cantonese is improving, and his chopstick skills are very good now. Anyway, here is my vague description of Chengde. We stopped at a place on the side of a river where there was a really nice building and a long walkway with poems and quotes written in Chinese calligraphy along the walls. I’m not really sure what the history of the place was but it was pretty. Ummmm, that was about all we saw in Chengde… it was really just a place to stop before moving onto our other destinations.
Jishou
In Jishou, we went to a small town or village or something Then we went to a little ancient village (known for their dried pig faces or something? Picture is up on flickr) and their houses on stilts on the riverside. The village itself was kind of neat… old style construction but is turning more touristy with small shops everywhere. Here, we caught a ride on one of those old fashioned boats where the guy uses a big stick of bamboo to push us along (even though he did end up using a paddle for a bit). We took a short ride down the river, surrounded by large mountains… it was very scenic. As the sun started to set, we made our way back to the tour bus to head for a night of rest before heading to our next destination.
Zhangjaijie
As we approached Zhangjaijie and area, the terrain started to get more mountainous and lush. Each hill/mountain was covered in either trees or crops (step planting)… and every so often we’d cross a very scenic river or stream. There is a “Stone Forest” inside a national part which is a UNESCO World Heritage site. This park was magnificent. It took us 2 days to go to the most scenic places in the park, each turn having a more amazing view than the one before. It was really like the paintings that you see of china with the rocks jutting out and a light fog floating between the pillars of rock. On the second day, we were even luckier. It had snowed the night before so the view was even MORE amazing. There was a light layer of snow on everything and it was still snowing a little bit so it was like a “winter wonderland” (excuse my corniness). But really… it was breath-taking. This would be one of the places I would recommend. It’s a little pricey (the 2 day pass for the park was 245 Yuan…or whatever the China dollar is called)…. but I do think it was worth it. Since it is protected by UNESCO, they don’t allow smoking or spitting in the park… probably one of the few places in China where you will find this. Yes, there is a lot of spitting and smoking in China. Ummm, oh yeah, one more thing we saw on the tour: some WICKED caves… I put the pics up on flickr. They are the caves with the stalagmite and stalactite thingies… I think thats what they are called?? Either way, they are sweeeet… and they light them up in such a way that it’s even cooler. Ummm… Oh, and we also went to the theater to see a Chinese Cultural thing… it was really entertaining and the acts were very fascinating to say the least.
Anyway, that’s a quick synopsis of the places we have been so far. After my mom heads back to Canada, John and I will head back into China to take on Beijing, Xi’an, Chengdu, Lhasa, Chonqing, The Three Georges, Yellow Mountain, and Shanghai before coming back to Hong Kong one last time.
For those of you who have requested access to my flickr pictures, I have posted the ones from China already. Enjoy!
Tags: China
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