Kongtong mountain

To quote the little blurb on the ticket:

"Kongtong mountain is located in Pingliang City, Gansu province. It is near Xi'an in the east and Lanzhou on the west. It played an important communication role on the ancient Silk Road. It has the highest sightseeing, cultural and scientific value for its unique and beautiful natural landscape as well as its simple and profound humane influence."

I think I have already mentioned that I was mainly glad that I made it to the top of this one (and I won't mention that it wasn't half as far to go).

Xi'an to Pingliang

These, in order, should be:

Some lovely scenery.

Gemma taking a picture of the boy in the restaurant where we stopped for a delicious beef and rice noodle soup.

Gemma showing the boy how the camera works.

And a slightly blurry shot of some of the caves we've passed.

To Lanzhou

My timing has got all out of whack. The last two posts were from
yesterday and the day before. I have a bunch of photos I want to show
you, but they'll have to wait until we get some internet again. For
now I am relying on the blessed little kindle.

Yesterday we went to Kongtong mountain. I made it to the top of this
one, one of the new drivers, Juan, went with us and I didn't want him
to think I was a wuss.

Last night I slept in Gertie for reasons it is not really polite to go
into on a public blog. It was a lovely was to say goodbye to her. And
I can't bloody believe I miss a truck.

This morning was the last lot of goodbyes. I got to say a surprise
second goodbye to Mick when Asima broke down fifteen minutes from the
hotel and he and Gertie came to rescue us.

We had another long delay not long after. Two cranes were blocking the
way, lifting a truck full of bees back onto the road. Juan made mate
[tea] and shared it. Quite delicious.

Tonight was all about the all you can eat Korean barbeque and walking
home slowly in the dark. Hopefully tonight will also be about deep,
restful, boneless sleep.

To Pingliang

I don't know if I wasn't paying attention as we came in to Xi'an, but
the landscape has changed a bit. As we drove out there was that thing
I love at home up round Casterton and Coleraine where you are drivng
along the flat and the valleys drop down away from the horizon.

Now we drive through proper hills. Many of them have the caves dug
back into them that I remember from years ago when I caught the train
from Xi'an to Beijing. All the reds and greens have been left behind
and the hills are shades of honey mustard and khaki.

The new truck, Asima, has new people, new drivers and a new
organisational system. I am working hard on remembering that it is
different, not wrong.

Fwd: Goodbye to you

As anyone who has met me more than once can imagine, I am inconsolable
with the idea of losing so many people I love all at once. There may
have been tears twice or three times. No one tell me that I will have
a new truck and new adventures, I am not done grieving Gertie.

xx

Terracotta worriers

Wu Dang Shan

Wu Dang Shan was a happy place. It was much cooler and full of beautiful things and it was where Jackie Chan filmed the Karate Kid.

I think the photos go: Gertie in the hotel in Yi Chang.

Gertie in the car park at the bottom of Wu Dang Shan (she was not allowed to come up the hill with us and we missed her - especially when the Chinese bus drivers tried to kill us on the hair pin roads on the way up (and I hit my head on the buses about eight times because I am clumsy and too tall for this country).

Sign for the Toiret (that one's for you, Drew).

A shot of the martial arts school (which was probably my favourite part of this leg of the trip).

Me knitting in the, um, Purple something temple heaven thing.

Cute chair carrying

Butterfly

The place where the scene with the cobra was filmed in Karate Kid (it was on CCTV 6 the other night, most of us watched it).

Three Gorges Dam Theme Park

If you are in China and you need a toilet, the ones in the Three Gorges Dam memorial thing are second only to the ones hidden deep in the heart of the Shi Lin forest. The toilets have been getting better as we head north, and part of me is sad I am not heading to Beijing with the others (plus, they get to ride ponies in inner Mongolia, the b&st&rds). 

I think these photos are the triffid things in Three Gorges Dam memorial. The dam. Another sign for Morag. A mountain somewhere. Around the corner from the hotel in Yi Chang. And a church in Yi Chang.

Three Gorges Dam photos

This is our boat and the dam and the rain that dogged us for most of the journey and the sunshine and dragon boats on the last morning.

O! God! I have the Internet!

I don't remember what I last posted. Have you seen the pandas? Did I show you the pandas? Did I mention the tai chi students at Wu Dang Shan?

We are in Xi'an and I am in a welter of upset and separation anxiety. People are flying home. Gertie and Mick and Gaetano are going on to Beijing. I am changing trucks and will be going with Asima and Al and Juan. Will I ever love Asima as much as I love Gertie? Prepare yourself for several Gertie photos in the next post or so. Claire has already flown on to Beijing and after tomorrow Julia will go with Gertie.

Last night was super fun. We all went out for drinks after dinner in the Muslim Quarter and ended up having the kinds of conversations you can only have when you have shared a month and a half of travelling. The type of conversations I couldn't have in front of my mother (sorry mum).

We ended up eating baozi from the man with the baozi cart outside the hotel at 2 in the morning. He accidentally set his cart on fire but it was all okay because we shouted to him until he came back and put it out. Orla and I were the last (wo)men standing and we couldn't go home because he'd asked us if we'd mind the stall for him while he went off on his motor bike. That was fine until three Chinese young people came up and wanted baozi. So I got up to serve them.

I have included some photos of Chongqing. They are old buildings and a woman using a whatsit.

Three Gorges Dam is giving me existential angst

We cruise along between hills that have not got used to the idea they a not mountans anymore. We look into the murky water and think of all the homes and towns and cemeteries and sewerage plants that are down there.

Our ship is a Chinese tourist one, not a Westerm tourist one and is full of shouting smoking drinking fat Chinese men with no shirts on. There have ben plenty of tours off the boat, but it has been raning solidly. Apparently the Beijing subway has flooded.

Partly I have loved that my only two options have been sleeping or reading. It has helped me catch up on myself without feeling guilty that I should be out seeing things. Partly it has involved enduring three days sharig a small cabin with thee other girls,narrow bunks and second-hand cigarete smoke coming in through the ventilation system.

Chongqing

This city is gobsmacking. Old old buildings next to new buildings next to communist buildings next to old buildings. burnt out husks of buildings. Buildings being torn down.

We came in in the evening with terrible traffic and saw an amusement park and twin golden Chrysler buildings and the meeting of the rivers and little houses on stilts climbing up the mountainside.

When the sun went down the city lit up in neon and all the people came out to dance and cook food in the street. We went to Carrefour to get snacks for the boat tomorrow and on the way back stopped at a little hole in the wall food place to eat. We had wonton soup with sea weed because the cute boy with no shirt told me it was hen hao chi.

I am feeling a deep reluctance to be stuck on a boat for three nights.

Chengdu Pandas part 2

I found that I loved the red pandas just as much as the giant pandas, but the only one that I could get a decent shot of was the mangy terrifying one that was missing half its hair. Apart from that one, they have really sweet faces and bushy tails and (in spite of having learned from Australian possums that sweet faces and bushy tails come with sharp claws and an inclination to rip your face off) I wanted to pick one up and cuddle it.

I have again been an even worse tourist in Chengdu than I was in Emeishan. The only things I have done of note are: go and drink chrysanthemum tea, go and eat pizza, go and buy bread and tea from Carrefour, go and eat rare steak. There has been a sweet little drama llama on the tour this last while (cf. above comment about bushy tails and faces being ripped off) and some recovery time was needed.

Also, as one of the girls pointed out, I've 'done' Chengdu with my mum not three years ago. I partly wanted to go back and do all the things that we did and I partly just missed my mum.

Chongqing next, and then onto a boat for three nights on the Yangtze river. I have even more reservations about that than the pandas. Not because I don't like boats (I do), not because three nights trapped in a small place with all the people bothers me that much (it does), but because I have heard rumours of all-night karaoke...