Round the World with Ann and Katie

With Katie restored to good health we embarked on an 8 hour bus journey from Kunming to Lijiang. The bus was ultra-modern – I haven’t been on such a plush bus in the UK. It had aeroplane type seats and a hostess. Very comfy compared to some we have been on. We met a Canadian couple on the bus who were teaching English in Guangzhou. They were going to Shangri-La which was a bit further on than Lijiang. If you have read the book “Lost Horizon” or seen the old black and white film you will know all about Shangri-La. Anyway, after a very pleasant journey through the mountains we arrived in Lijiang in the early evening. There is a modern town and an old walled town. Well it was old until it was demolished by an earthquake about 10 years ago so they have reconstructed it. It is quite touristy, having lots of shops selling crafts and souvenirs but is very pleasant, especially at night when the streets are all lit up. There is no traffic in the old town and there are lots of little streams and bridges (a bit reminiscent of Venice). We had a pleasant meal in a restaurant by a stream (accompanied by a very bad saxophonist – but that is better than the usual Chinese music which reminds me of two tomcats fighting on a tin roof).
The next day we explored the town and visited a lovely house which although reconstructed was very authentic. It had beautiful gardens with lots of water running through and lovely trees. The Chinese really know how to do a garden. In the afternoon we visited another huge garden which has a lake and we climbed a couple of hills for a good view over the town and the mountains in the distance. The next day we caught another bus to Qiaotou which is at the start of Tiger Leaping Gorge, the real reason we had come to Lijiang. Getting off the bus in Qiaotou we were met by a woman called Margo who runs a cafe there. She gave us some maps of the gorge and Katie had cheese on toast (she gets withdrawal symptoms if she doesn’t have cheese every day!). Then we set off on our hike. The path was quite gradual to start with and wound along the gorge through fields of corn and sunflowers and trees. We passed through a little village after about 2 hours and then we started the serious climbing. This section of the path is called 26 bends (or 24 or 28 depending on who is counting) and is very steep indeed. It was also extremely hot and humid but we made it to the top where a woman was selling cold(ish) drinks. The rest of the way was lovely, through woods with lots of wild flowers and butterflies and great views of the Yangtze at the bottom of the gorge and the mountains on the other side. We reached our accommodation for the night, Half Way Guesthouse. If you have Michael Palin’s Himalaya book he describes the place much better than me. The house clings to the hillside and the bedrooms look out on the gorge with fantastic views. The toilet is supposed to have the best view of any toilet in the world! And the food was fantastic as well because it is all home grown – I swear I spoke to my dinner ( a chicken) earlier in the day! So we sat on the veranda eating and drinking cold beer as it got dark. The next day we hired a guide for a walk up to about 4000m. You have to have a guide because the maps are non-existent or very poor. They are mainly artistic impressions of the topography and owe nothing to scale or contours making navigation impossible (of which more later!) But we followed our guide and reached our peak by lunchtime. On the way up we saw him pulling things off his trousers and looking down we realised that ours were also covered in leeches. Horrible things. On arriving back at the guesthouse I went to have a shower and couldn’t at first see where all the blood was coming from. However when I was getting dressed I found a huge fat leech clinging to the waistband of my trousers. It had had a good feast from my back! The wound wouldn’t stop bleeding – it bled through a plaster and another dressing and in the end I had to spend the evening with a wodge of toilet paper stuck to my back! But eventually it stopped.
The following morning we set off to complete our walk through the gorge which went swimmingly until we had to find the ferry across the Yangtze (Gerry Marsden could get another hit out of that!) The map indicated it was just round the next bend (Been there, Iain??) but several km further on and we still hadn’t found it. I asked a woman and she showed us the track (cost me 5 yuan for the directions) but even then it was difficult to find the actual ferry crossing point. When we eventually got here the boat was on the other side and the ferry man waved to us and then just sat down and watched us from the other side. When he felt we had waited for long enough he brought the boat across for us. I’ve never seen so much rust on a boat! Anyway we got across and hauled ourselves up out of the gorge to be greeted by a man who said his friend had a taxi. By this stage we had both run out of water and it very hot so we decided to take him up on his offer as it was still a little way to the village where we wanted to catch the bus. However, the Chinese don’t seem to have grasped the basics of the client/service provider relationship. I had always assumed that if I was paying a taxi driver I would be taken where I wanted to go, in this case Daju. However, he wanted to take us to Lijiang (at a cost of around 300 yuan – the bus is 30 yuan) and he couldn’t be bothered to take us to Daju. So parched as we were we set off to walk to Daju. Fortunately after a little way we found an inn and bought lots of cold drinks. Here we encountered another typically Chinese scenario. They will tell you anything to get you to stay at their guesthouse or go in their taxi or eat at their restaurant and you can’t tell whether it is the truth or not. So it came as no surprise when the woman at the inn said that there wouldn’t be a bus until the morning and we should stay at her place. We had been told the buses ran until 6pm so we declined her offer – and they always get really miffed if you refuse!) and walked up to Daju. Where it was confirmed that the next bus was at 6.40am. So we stayed the night in the Snowflake Hotel. This was a very nice place where we had a late lunch, dinner, breakfast, two beers, a twin room and the bus tickets back to Lijiang all for 187 yuan. So if ever you are in Tiger Leaping Gorge I have three tips: stay at the Half Way Guesthouse where you can squat on the same toilet as Michael Palin, take the NEW ferry across the Yangtze NOT the old one and stay at the Snowflake Hotel in Daju.
After a breakfast of pancakes we got the bus back to Lijiang. Most of the way we were on cobbled roads so I kept being bounced off my seat and my teeth were well rattled by the time we reached the main road. But the views of the mountains were superb as we bounced round hairpin bends avoiding the remnants of landslides. As we were back in Lijiang by about 10am we decided to get the bus back to Kunming the same day. So we arrived here late yesterday evening. We have bought some train tickets to take us to Guilin overnight – we should be there by lunchtime tomorrow. This will be our last major port of call before we head for Hongkong and our flight to Darwin on 14 September. At Guilin you can take a 6 hour boat trip to Yangshuo which apparently has some fantastic limestone scenery and is a very nice place. Will keep you posted…
By the way the public transport in China is excellent. The trains are on time, although very slow – I think something was lost when they translated the word “express”. The hard sleepers are good value and not too hard and a lot of trains have airconditioning. Hot water is supplied so you can do yourself noodles and make tea etc. The toilets leave something to be desired but then you can’t have everything. The buses come in a variety of guises. Buses in towns are a flat rate fare of 1 yuan (15 to the pound) so you can cover quite large distances very cheaply. Local buses tend to be of the rattletrap variety and fill up with people with baskets of veggies, walnuts, cats etc. The “express” buses as described above are much more comfortable but more expensive but still good value compared to anything in the UK. And we have had no trouble getting tickets for buses and trains even at short notice, contrary to what it says in the guidebooks. More news later.

Hi again
We are now in Kunming but only until tomorrow when we catch the bus to Lijiang. We had a lazy couple of days in Emei Shan hoping that Katie would recover which she did to an extent. We treated ourselves to an afternoon at the hot springs, a huge complex of natural hot pools just round the corner from our hostel. We had met a Dutch girl at the hostel and she joined us. It was very relaxing, swimming and just lying around in warm water. And it seemed to do Katie good. But then overnight on the train she had a relapse. So when we got to Kunming we decided that we should seek out some medical assistance. This was not a good idea! There is a hospital near to the hostel which were advised to go to and we were told that the doctors spoke English. Getting to see the doctor at all was something of an experience. We eventually found the right department, a corridor of chairs outside some consulting rooms. No doctors or nurses anywhere so we just sat and waited. More and more patients arrived and still no medical staff. Eventually some doctors and nurses did appear and then the scrum started. People just shoved and pushed their way into the consulting rooms. There was no organisation whatsoever, no queuing, no prioritising, just a free for all. Someone would go in and sit down in the chair in the room and about 10 other patients and their families would also go in and crowd around, pushing and elbowing to make sure that they were next. It was a nightmare. In the end we did manage to get into the hot seat and of course the doctor spoke no English at all. We did our best with the phrase book but in the end she just appeared to get fed up with us and sent us off to another department to find someone who could speak English. No member of staff could be found to help so in the end we had to ask a young women who spoke quite good English to help. But even then we were getting nowhere fast so we just came out. Katie is however a lot better now. I think it must be the dread of having to go through all that again that has cured her.
Anyway, we have a nice time today climbing a hill not far from Kunming. It overlooks a huge lake and there are some pleasant gardens on the way up. And Katie was well enough to go out for a meal tonight. We are hoping to do some trekking from Lijiang and have been making enquiries about possible alternatives. Of which more later….

We are back in the hostel a day earlier than expected because Katie is still not recovered from the trots. However, we did make to the Golden Summit of the Emei Shan. Ther is a huge gold Buddha at the top with four elephants. We walked for about 6 hours or so yesterday and reached a monastery where we spent the night. The whole way up is on steps so it quite knackering, especially in the heat. It was very humid and we spent most of the climb in the clouds. However, it was a good walk and we enjoyed it very much. I think we have got a bit more used to the crowds everywhere. Usually at home if I see anyone at all when I am out walking it is quite unusual. Here there are droves of people everywhere. On the way up we went through an area where there are lots of monkeys. We had been advised to take walking sticks (provided by the hostel) in order to defend ourselves.Katie, of course, wouldn’t be seen dead with a trekking pole let alone a walking stick, so she soon had monkeys grabbing her trousers while I tred to fend them off. I also had one grabbing my leg – not a good idea as I was in shorts. But we managed to fight them off in the end. The monastery where we stayed was called The Elephant Bathing Pool. We had a double room in what was a typical Buddhist monastery building. The woman who took our money clearly hadn’t been on the customer relations course! We have found that a lot of Chinese people are extremely rude and inconsiderate. Today we set off for the top and were there by lunch time. We had intended to stay in the monastery at the top but Katie felt really rough so we decided to come back to the hostel. We were horrifed to see people being carried up the mountain by porters. Big fat lumps being carried up steep steps by two quite small men doesn’t make a pleasant sight. Thankfully, no Western people were taking this option. Katie is currently adopting horizontal mode in the bedroom so I hope she is recovered by tomorrow. We will be having a quiet few days here before we catch the train for Kunming on Weds night. I must admit I could do with a bit of a rest – all this enjoying oneself is very tiring!

Just a quick update. We left Chengdu on the bus on Thursday having been told that there were roadworks and so the journey to Wolong would take 6 hours. What they didn’t tell us was that about 3 hours would be spent at the side of the road waiting for the road works to finish for the day. So we set off at 12.30 and finally arrived at gone 7pm! Katie didn’t feel very well so it was a bit of a trial – too much chilli in the hotpot I think! But it was worth it because the last part of the journey was along a spectacular gorge and the next day we went to see the pandas at the Wolong Panda Research Centre. They have lots of pandas of all ages from a tiny pink one about the size of my hand in an incubator to some older ones who are part of the breeding progamme. The best ones were the younger ones who were kept in two big enclosures and were enjoying themselves climbing around on their climbing frames and rolling around with each other. They also chomped their way through vast quantities of bamboo and carrots while we were there. They make you laugh just looking at them. The breeding programme is apparently very successful and they are releasing some pandas into the wild.
We had wanted to carry on further west but the road is closed at the moment so we were told so we came back to Chengdu today and then caught another bus to Emei Shan. This is a monutainous area where there are lots of monasteries (Buddhist) where you can spend the night. So tomorrow we are setting off on a 3 day hike to the top (about 3000 meters)staying in monsteries along the way. The idea is to be at the top for sunrise on the second day.
All for now.

Hi
Arrived by overnight train in Chengdu and are staying in a hostel here tonight before catching the bus to Wolong where they have the panda research station. Chengdu is supposed to be a much more laid back city than those we have visited further north. Haven’t spotted the difference yet! We had a pleasant last day in Xi’an, visiting Banpo Museum which is on the site of a Neolithic village. Yes, it was my (Ann’s) idea – “Poor Katie” I can hear you all saying. She put a brave face on it and we had quite an adventure getting there and back on various combinations of buses. We are resigned to approaching places in ever decreasing circles but we get there in the end. Anyway, it was a very good museum. They have built a big hangar over the excavated village and you can see all the outlines of the huts and postholes and fireplaces and everything. Also there are a few burials on display. And lots of stone axes, fish hooks, pottery etc. Some of the pottery is quite decorative with pictures of fish and deer. Well, I thought it was great anyway! And although we said we were not going to buy anything else we both bought a painting at the museum. They had a display of “farmers’ paintings” which are very colourful and in a naive style. Apparently, during the Cultural Revolution artists were sent out to the countryside to do something more useful (like growing food) and they taught the local farmers to paint in exchange for lessons in how to grow stuff.
The train journey was fine – in fact things are going very smoothly all round. Katie is actually doing some work. She had a paper (scientific) sent to her to correct the English prior to publication. It is a nice little earner and you can do them on the train. Don’t know when we’ll be online again as we are heading on to the mountains (Siguniang Shan) after visiting the pandas.

Hello
We got an overnight train to Xi’an arriving just before lunch. It was a good journey but we had been told to expect all sorts of dire consequences if we travelled hard sleeper. You have two tiers of 3 bunks in anopen compartment, about 15 compartments in a carriage. The main problem is that Chinese people buy a ticket for a single bunk when there are 4 or more of them in a group. We had been told to expect to spend the night defending our territory and repelling all boarders but in the event it was very civilsed and we got a good nights sleep.
Xi’an is the nicest big Chinese city we have visited. The pollution does not seem as bad as elsewhere and it is a very modern place with lots of huge Western style shops, including a department store just over the road which knocks John Lewis into a cocked hat. Our hostel is very central and we explored the Muslim quarter in the afternoon. There are lots of market stalls selling all sorts of food and souvenirs. They also have crickets for sale in little cages. We also visited the Great Mosque which was very peaceful after the crowded market and also quite plain in contrast to the gaudy Buddhist temples were have been seeing recently. We met up with an English couple again who we had first encountered in Mongolia, which was nice. They are going on a cruise down the Yangtze and then going to Japan.
In the evening we went out for another culinary adventure. We went into a restaurant we liked the look of (applying the usual criteria (see previous entry). However, we were told that the downstairs room didn’t have an English menu and we would have to up to the 3rd floor. When we arrived it was obvious that upstairs was going to be far more expensive (tablecloths, napkins folded in wine glasses etc) so we ducked out again. Next door we went into another place and chose things at random from a Chinese menu (forgot the phrase book again!) and had a very good meal indeed.
Yesterday (Sunday) we went to the Shaaanxi History Museum which traces the history of the area through from the Neolithic to the Qing Dynasty. It was really excellent with wonderful displays of bronze, pottery and porcelain ( a lot of grave goods including many little pottery figures). Then we went on to the Big Goose Pagoda from which you get a great view of the city. It has become extremely hot in the past few days so we are going quite slowly. We went to the Terracotta Army today. Again this was really impressive – somewhere I had wanted to go for a long time. The site itself is very well organised and 3 pits of warriors are open to the pulic the best being Pit 1 which has been excavated to a greater extent than the others. I know some of Terracotta Warriors are going to the British Museum soon but it is the number of them and scale of the thing that is most staggering.
Tomorrow we are going to Banpo which is a Neolithic site near Xi’an. Then that will be an end to the cultural side of things for a while as we are off to Chengdu tomorrow on the train. We paln to visit the panda reserve near there and then take to the hills for a while.
All for now.

Hello everyone
The aforementioned tour of the hutongs was something of a disaster. We were pestered every two minutes by rickshaw men who were determined that we were not going to walk. In order to escape we bought some food and paid to go into a courtyard garden to have a bit of a picnic, as we thought in the peace and quiet. How wrong can you be! The place was full of tour groups being shouted at through loud hailers. When they literally started climbing over us as we sat eating our food we decided to bail out and returned to the hostel.
The next day we caught the train for Datong. The railway stations in Beijing are huge and there are so many people that you can barely move. The queue for our train was like a crowd scene from a Biblical epic but we finally boarded the train. We had booked hard seats which are the cheapest seats and aren’t too hard if you are not going far. The carriages are however packed with people without seats so it is all very overcrowded and hot. The journey took about 6 hours and on arrival we went to the CITS at the station, who can arrange accommodation etc. The hostel we wanted was full so we ended up in a cheap hotel with the filthiest toilet and washing facilities. But it was only for two nights. The main reason for going to Datong, which is a horribly polluted, dirty city, was to visit the Hanging Temple and the caves at Yungang. Both of these more than compensated for the appalling hotel. The Hanging Temple is built on the side of a cliff and is about 1500 years old. The caves are dug out of sandstone and are full of Buddhist statues, some huge and some tiny. They are all carved out of the sandstone and some are very colourful and well-preserved. They were extremely impressive but we have now seen enough Buddhas to last us a life time.
The nexy day we caught the bus for the Wutai Shan, which in view of my last comment might seem a bit of a mistake as it the foremost Buddhist temple site in the country! However, it is also a very beautiful mountain area which is why it appealed to us. Our bus driver was a total maniac even by Chinese standards. The approved technique appears to be to keep your hand on the horn all the way and just assume that everything else will get out of the way. We overtook huge lorries full of coal, first on one side and then on the other, on hairpin bends, in tunnels. He even tried to go through the lane for oncoming traffic when we went through a toll gate. We did survive the journey but I felt it was touch and go. The whole of the town where we stayed (Taihuai) is full of Buddhist temples. We explored one which was up huge flights of stairs, hundreds and hundreds of stairs. But it gave a good view of the town. There were not many Western tourists in the town which in many ways was nice but it meant that we were again constantly pestered by people trying to make us part with our money. The restaurants were excellent and we had some good meals for about 3 pounds a head including beer. On our second day in the Wutai Shan we just went for a hike in the hills to escape from the crowds and to explore the area. The scenery was great and it was good to be in the fresh air after all the pollution of the cities.
Back on the bus on Weds 8th August and off to Taiyuan en route for Pingyao. A much more sedate journey this time, thank heavens. Taiyuan is another huge, polluted city. As soon as we were down out the mountains the air pollution was horrendous. A thick smog hangs over everywhere and the dust is also terrible. In Taiyuan we bought tickets for the overnight train to Xi’an for today (Fri 10th ). I was able to put my limited Mandarin to use buying the train and bus tickets – very difficult and accomplished with the help of a very nice Chinese man. Another two hours or so on another bus put us in Pingyao. It is an ancient walled city with original little houses and alleyways and coutryards – how I had imagined China to be. There is not much of that sort of thing left as it has all be bulldozed in favour of highrise flats, shops, offices, factories etc. We found a nice hostel in an old-style building with lots of courtyards and little rooms. We walked all the way round the city walls the next day which was enjoyable as not many other people seemed to be doing so – so once again we escaped from the crowds. Then we went to the first bank that was established in China, sometime in the early 19th century. It is now a very interesting museum. Also inclded in our sightseeing ticket for Pingyao was a Daoist temple. This seems to be quite an actractive philosophy of life. But only if you are well-behaved. One of the exhibits showed what happens to naughty people: being cut in half with a large saw was one of the milder punishments. We also visited the home of the guy who founded the bank, preserved as it would have when he lived there. And lastly the County Administration Offices, which sound very boring but were in fact interesting enough. They housed the prison and there was an exhibition of instruments of torture and execution which were really horrendous – a bloodthirsty the Chinese clearly. Today we hired some bikes for a couple of hours and explored more of Pingyao before having lunch at a place where a vry interesting dish figured on the menu “Clear cooks the bull’s penis”???!!!!! We had noodles!
We are now just filling in some time on t’Internet prior to heading back to Taiyuan to get our train. More news from Xi’an in a few days time.
Things I (Ann) like about China:
the food, trying to chat to Chinese people, the countryside, learning about the culture and history
Things I don’t like about China:
the pollution, the way Chinese people spit all the time everywhere, the huge crowds everywhere
And why are the toilets here called WCs here when they make very little use of water and the idea of privacy which I have always was implicit in the word closet is almost totally lacking?

Hi Guys
Yesterday we went to the Summer Palace: we went on the canal which apparently is how the emperors used to go. It was really lovely – huge lakes, lots of pretty bridges and a few palaces (which we didn’t spend much time on as we are a bit “palaced out’). The best thing was that on the boat we met a little girl (aged 5) and her mother and granny. She spoke excellent English which she wanted to try on us. So I spoke in mandarin and she spoke in English! And she understood me! I was dead chuffed. So that is about the measure of my Mandarin – chatting to a 5 year old! But it is progress. We went on the lake in a pedal boat – very exhausting in the heat of the day but great fun. Our chopstick technique is improving all the time but we found last nights cucmber slices a bit of challenge!
Thanks for your message, Linda. We didn’t see many birds in Siberia but we saw lots of eagles and other birds of prey in Mongolia – ten to a tugrog!
Going to explore some hutongs today after lunch – washing the smalls this morning.

We arrived in Beijing on Sunday afternoon after a rather train ride from UB across the Gobi desert. It was pretty flat and uninteresting most of the way – just the odd camel to relieve the boredom. The highlight of the trip was the border crossing where the bogies are changed because the Mongolian and Chinese trains run on a different gauge track. This took place at around midnight. We didin’t have to get off the train at all, the carriages being raised up and the new bogies slid in underneath. All very hi-tech and operated by guys wearing what appeared to be patent leather dancing shoes.
Beijing is fearfully hot and the pollution is appalling – a thick smog hangs over the place all the time. We explored Tiananmen Square after we had settled into our hostel (Jade International Hostel which is excellent and is very central to all the tourist attractions). The scale is quite overwhelming and it is crowded with thousands of people (the square not the hostel!) We found a good place for dinner. Our criteria are that it doesn’t have tablecloths and is full of Chinese people rather than tourists. We haven’t been isappointed yet and have had some excellent meals which have been very good value for money. On Monday we did the Forbidden City which took all day. Again it is huge, with countless palaces etc. And lots of interesting exhibitions (and some boring ones – two whole buildings full of official stamps). Yesterday we went to the Temple of Heaven where the Emporers used to go to pray for a good harvest. Then we explored the centre of Beijing which is full of huge office blocks and designer shops- very modern. In the evening we went to the Beijing Opera which was an experience and a great spectacle. Today we have been to the Great Wall. We went on a tour in a minibus with a few other people and went to a part of the wall off the tourist beat which wasn’t at all crowded. We hiked about 4 hours along the wall. We walked on a stretch that has not been reconstructed and not many people visit followed by a bit that has been rebuilt which had more people on it, but not that many.
We are venturing out shortly to the night market to get something from the various stalls. We walked down there the other night and they have all sorts of things on sticks, octopus, starfish, millipedes, even seahorses. Enough to make you go veggie!