Not Approved by LP

So the motorbike dropped me off at the bridge to the old town, I crossed over and went to the first building, a lovely old place and took a room with a balcony with excellent views. Unfortunately I hadn’t checked the water situation and instead of a nice hot shower it was a freezing cold bucket. But that at least refreshed me and within 25 minutes had found a nice bar.
Ended up staying 4 nights in Shangli, a chance to get over the jet lag and a relaxing place. Shangli from memory was one of the old tea horse stops going back centuries so has lots of old buildings and history. Also tend to get a bit of atmosphere as the Chinese use them as party towns. It is also an ideal base for visiting the Bifengxia panda base – it turned out this was where the truck had dropped me off and was a long way even when taking the minivan.
Bifengxia took over after Woolong was destroyed by the 2008 earthquake. Its in a lovely setting, set in forests and a deep gorge. The pandas themselves are probably better seen in Chengdu as the enclosures here not as nice and more spread out. However where as there you had packed crowds here come lunchtime I had the place to myself as even the staff went for their lunch. So I sat down had a coffee and as I sat there one of the pandas came out and climbed a tree and another walked up to me. It was so sweet in such a lovely setting. Then after I did a nice hike down the gorge along the river and thru the forest and back up the other side. Got back to the road and sat on the wall towait for the bus to take me back to the reception area. I put my bag on the wall next to me only for it to roll back and to my horror fall down then quickly descend under the road and on its way back down the gorge. Not only did it have a camera in it but all the sd cards rechargers kindle tablet and 2 jackets. My heart sunk but luckily it dropped about 30 meters and then stopped right on the ledge before the abyss below. One of the park guys kindly climbed down and I was extremely relieved plus some. But all told a good day.

Yesterday took the minivan back to YaAn then a 8 hour boring bus journey to Kading. At least this time I got a good hotel with the vip room and a chance to do some washing.
Tomorrow head for Daocheng in the middle of nowhere. Have covered some of the route previously and a lovely trip but high altitude so probably cold.
Will try to update where possible.

Unfortunately the tablet doesn’t load/work as it should but will struggle on.

So, took the 380 Qatar airline flight to Doha, great plane and not so many peple which was good. Qatar airlines as always very good even if food standards have dropped. It was then an older plane for the less travelled chengdu route but good enough.
Chengdu airport probably in need of an upgrade and knowing China there is probably one coming but got thru fairly quickly.
For anyone reading this blog searching for current info/ ideas I will include basic info as I am aware how little info is around for this region and appreciated what was out there. So from a plan of going into Chengdu I decided to give the smog and traffic a miss and check out the bus station at the airport. There is a China bank atm upstairs which is useful as gives a large amount and worked unlike the one in arrivals. And China is no longer cheap !.
The bus station is easy to find and usable/doable with some handy local destinations.
I took the bus for a 2 hour ish trip to YaAn. Unfortunately here it all got abit messy as I hadn ‘t planned for this – obviously to get a visa you have to have an arranged itinery and hotels ! – so I arrived as it was getting dark and pretty clueless. I realised the last minibus to Shangli had gone so ageed a price of 50y for a motorbike to take me there, at least that is what I thought. All he did was took me to another bus station and put me on a truck. So into the mountain we went then he dropped me off. I quickly figured this wasn’t Shangli as it was neither old or nice and here it got a bit complicated as all I had to go on was a bit of info that i had copied from someones blog but I wasn’t sure if the Chinese chacters referred to Shangli. But I showed peple the characters and they all pointed in the same direction despite looking concerned. The reason soon became apparent, I walked and walked and walked. For 2 hours along a windy dark road, eventually it was hard not to be a bit concerned.

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