Not Approved by LP

Yesterday took the coach for the 12 hour trip to Jiuzhaighou. Good roads and coach so trip painless. The road follows the river with mountains both sides but with numerous HEP stations and the related pylons and other man made ugliness nothing picturesque. After a few hours improves and becomes scenic as delve further into the mountains and more Tibetan. Finally reached our destination in the dark and fog, our sister coach which we had travelled from Chengdu with managed to crash as we entered the town – so many times on this trip drivers have driven so well in hard conditions only to make big mistakes on the final stretch.

Jiuzhaighou is one of Chinas top tourist destination and a UNESCO site so gets the full works, no ugly grey buildings here !! Will go to the national park tomorrow, hopefully the weather will improve as currently foggy and bitterly cold, it has a high rating with prices to much so expect good things. In the meantime can look at my videoclips of the pandas having a teddy bears picnic, a billion other people probably have the same but I still love them.

Been out seeing some of the sights of Chengdu with the girl I met on the way here. Not that much going on, the new “old town” areas packed with Chinese, nice enough but would be nicer if they didn’t insist on knocking everything “old” down and replacing it with concrete blocks aka 1950’s style UK. In fact better if they started knocking some of the newer stuff down. Chengdu also holds its own on the pollution front, the poor auto focus system has a hard time seeing thru the smog !!

This morning went to the Panda breeding center, got there early so still quiet and some great photos. Surprised how many pandas there were. The adults did a top job doing panda poses, the cubs obviously had had a hard Friday night and slept, the babies wonderful but no pics allowed. The biggest surprise was the red pandas which I have never even heard of and they say there only 5000 left in the wild. When I was walking the hills in Tagong I came up close to one and never even bothered to get my camera out, didn’t have the faintest idea what it was, being brown and furry and left it in peace ( luckily ) as its an endangered species.

Hopefully by Monday the holiday crowds will have gone back to work and can move out, weather a bit grim at the moment, admittedly hard to really know given the smog – and this girl said to me England is polluted, lets put this into perspective. Then again an English student in Ganzi first asked me about the Darwin theory, then the Big Bang, I had to put her straight and told her to start learning about football if she wants to relate to English people !

It was good to get back to Ganzi, one of my favourite places. Love the market town atmosphere, the friendly monks and Tibetans, the great views, the monasteries and Tibetan quarters and not the police state as elsewhere, only dislike ... [Continue reading this entry]

Its been a hectic last couple of days. I took a wreck of a thing resembling a bus to Dege - the law of bus transport says the rougher the journey the worst the bus ( if the bus ... [Continue reading this entry]

Yesterday another 7am start for the 10 hour bus journey to Ganzi. A microbus for the benefit of locals, lots of stopping to pick up and drop off people in the middle of nowhere places and carrying this years ... [Continue reading this entry]

place to stay : Zha xi kang backpackers hostel . 35 sanchahe nanlu. good rooms with full facilities The ATM near post office looks new and was showing visa sign so probably accepts int ... [Continue reading this entry]

After giving up on Danba due to no one going there, as I was going to get the bus to Ganzi a lama calls out " Danba ". Good enough for me, so with a Chinese girl and two ... [Continue reading this entry]

Today hiked up to a place called Ani's nunnery I think. Lovely spot with the gompa in a valley and the hills around filled with prayer flags and the nuns and monks so colourful and friendly. I ... [Continue reading this entry]

Won't be making it to Danba tomorrow as too late. Went out for a late afternoon walk and photo session, some lovely views and then the local Tibetans started coming back towards Tagong, I guess from work or whatever ... [Continue reading this entry]

Another lovely day with the sun shining and lots of photo ops. Been out wandering around but nothing too exciting. Hopefully will be going to Danba tomorrow but transport a bit problematic so not sure, seems to depend ... [Continue reading this entry]