Over the last 10 days we have gained another 1000km northwards, a hundred more saddle sores each and thighs with the girth of tree trunks. The ride out of Chengdu was hideous for the first couple of days. The pollution was at the highest level we have seen, so thick that visibility was only a couple of hundred meters and you could taste the grit in the air. We both felt ill from it and it is unimaginable that people can survive past the age of 10. Perhaps some have never seen the sun? The road was also shocking with mud, ruts, and huge trucks thundering around.
Thankfully after that things picked up immeasurably. Spring has sprung in China! The sun came out, the blossom bloomed and the road was lined with fields of yellow canola as we rolled up and down the hills heading north. The towns we come to are vastly different from the rest of our trip. In Laos, and even Thailand, there would be one road, a few basic shops and a guesthouse. In China we are hitting towns the size of Wellington every few days with malls, airports, 8 lane highways... No English though which keeps us on our toes, where we like to be when not on our bikes.
After a day off to recover from a particularly nasty 90km we started out on a section that required 400km in 3 days, followed by an 80km warm-down into Xian. The first day was over a decent hill and then down a big river valley. It was a perfect day for riding with warm temperatures and a slight downhill so we got through the 120km with enough energy left to explore the town at the end of the day.
The next day started out down the same river before heading into the mountains which we would spend the next 2 days getting across. All was going well and we were flying along in the morning before our momentum was halted as D's front tire exploded with a report not unlike that of the long nine on the good ship Hispaniola. Luckily I saw it coming so had stopped or things could have got messy. We attracted quite the crowd - 15 men and one rather concerned looking toddler who were very interested in the changing of the inner tube (and the swearing and flinging of the old tube that accompanied it).
After that the hills started and Foping was a welcome sight at the end of 150km. A 35km uphill greeted us the next morning, just to sap any remaining energy our legs may have had, so another slow 130km saw us finally over the mountains and onto the plains of Shanxi. The road was spectacular at times, with massive gorges descending from 2500m mountains to a cliff-lined and perfectly clear mountain stream at the bottom. The last gorge we followed like this was about 80km long.
A quick note here to publicly thank the Chinese engineers who built two very impressive and long (2km) tunnels halfway up the mountains on our longest days, saving us at least 2 hours riding a day - we could see the old roads crawling up over the tops and were very very glad not to have to bike them.
We have been constantly overwhelmed by the Chinese peoples' friendliness and desire to help us. On this leg we came out of our hotel one morning (where 5 staff had helped us to our room the night before and demonstrated all the facilities, including how to turn on the taps) to find our bikes had been given a quick clean overnight. In another town we were looking a bit lost so a woman approached us and said she would like to be our guide. She was an English teacher and escorted us to the supermarket, at which point she was off with a cheery goodbye. We had heard so many stories before arriving that people were ignored at hotels and treated pretty gruffly. So far we have experienced nothing but the opposite.
Off to the Terracotta Warriors tomorrow, then onto our last 800km push to Beijing (which we have to do in 8 days so we can get there in time to meet Nova!).
More photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/steelbaker/CentralChina
C&D
Friday, March 28, 2008
Monday, March 17, 2008
Horse trekking across the universe
Well since we last wrote, we've been to our highest point ever, horse trekked in the snow, stayed in a Tibetan village, and seen some spectacular countryside. We left Chengdu for an 8 hour bus ride to a small town called Songpan. We were met there by our horse trekking guide, put up in a seedy hotel and slept the afternoon away - we were only 2850m above sea level but completely wiped out and headachey.
The next morning we woke up to clear blue skies and sunshine, our first in a while after the smog of the cities. We were doing a 3 day trek to 'Ice Mountain' and each day was about 5-6 hours of riding. Luckily we have calloused hardy bums from all the biking, so didn't get too sore.
The villages and people in this part of the world are very Tibetan, although officially we're still in Sichuan province. We saw lots of prayer flags, the architecture is very different, we stopped at a monastery to spin the prayer wheels, there are lots of yaks around, and the people all speak Tibetian. We were planning to go to Tibet, but the NZ government have emailed to let us know it's too unsafe there at the moment due to independence protests. The Chinese claim its under control, but I think we'll stick with The Herald as a more reliable source. Anyway we've got 5 more weeks for it to settle down, but this might be as close as we get.
The first day was stunning, through Central Otago type hills (but higher!) and river valleys. We arrived at our very basic accommodation with a Tibetan family. The house was freezing cold, well below zero each night, not helped by the hole in the wall masquerading as a window through which the falling snow drifted in (a quick plug for Fairydown and Kathmandu here, whose equipment I am convinced prevented me from being carried out frozen on a stretcher). The kitchen was where we spent most of our time, huddling over a plate of embers to warm up. Chairman Mao posters lined the wall, and dried meat was hanging from the roof. Luckily our budget didn't extend to the food with meat option.
Day 2 was a hike up to the base of Ice Mountain, which had covered itself in a cloud for the day. Very impressive nonetheless, with frozen waterfalls cascading through snowy tree-lined slopes. We explored the ruins of a Tibetan monastery at 4300m above sea level. The return to our accommodation coincided perfectly with the onset of snow, which continued throughout the night. We woke up to our last day to white everywhere.
A quick aside here to talk about toileting. Apparently the family didn't have a toilet. On the first day I was shown to the barn (unfortunately I was having stomach troubles, necessitating regular visits to the great outdoors) where I had to go in the corner with the pigs. It sounds terrible, and let me tell you, it was. After that D and I found a quiet corner of a field to relieve ourselves in (we weren't allowed to use the barn at night anyway because the dogs would bark and wake everyone up). So in the night I had to crawl out of a warm sleeping bag and scramble up a slope and under a fence - and bear in mind the second night it snowed all night! Very glad to be back in civilisation. Nice views though.
Our last day we went back to Songpan via a monastery. The going was slow through the snow and we had to walk some of the icy patches. We passed a team of yaks hauling logs uphill, but weren't allowed to take photos so you'll just have to imagine that bit. It snowed quite heavily on us for about an hour and we were shivering in our saddles. It certainly makes it picturesque though so not too much complaining. A quick wander around Songpan in the afternoon (ancient walls guarded by bronze warriors, covered bridges, impressive architecture etc) and back on the bus today for our 8 hour journey back into the grey.
Now debating the best course north, will keep you all updated as usual. Photos of horses and snow at: http://picasaweb.google.com/steelbaker/CentralChina
Love C&D
The next morning we woke up to clear blue skies and sunshine, our first in a while after the smog of the cities. We were doing a 3 day trek to 'Ice Mountain' and each day was about 5-6 hours of riding. Luckily we have calloused hardy bums from all the biking, so didn't get too sore.
The villages and people in this part of the world are very Tibetan, although officially we're still in Sichuan province. We saw lots of prayer flags, the architecture is very different, we stopped at a monastery to spin the prayer wheels, there are lots of yaks around, and the people all speak Tibetian. We were planning to go to Tibet, but the NZ government have emailed to let us know it's too unsafe there at the moment due to independence protests. The Chinese claim its under control, but I think we'll stick with The Herald as a more reliable source. Anyway we've got 5 more weeks for it to settle down, but this might be as close as we get.
The first day was stunning, through Central Otago type hills (but higher!) and river valleys. We arrived at our very basic accommodation with a Tibetan family. The house was freezing cold, well below zero each night, not helped by the hole in the wall masquerading as a window through which the falling snow drifted in (a quick plug for Fairydown and Kathmandu here, whose equipment I am convinced prevented me from being carried out frozen on a stretcher). The kitchen was where we spent most of our time, huddling over a plate of embers to warm up. Chairman Mao posters lined the wall, and dried meat was hanging from the roof. Luckily our budget didn't extend to the food with meat option.
Day 2 was a hike up to the base of Ice Mountain, which had covered itself in a cloud for the day. Very impressive nonetheless, with frozen waterfalls cascading through snowy tree-lined slopes. We explored the ruins of a Tibetan monastery at 4300m above sea level. The return to our accommodation coincided perfectly with the onset of snow, which continued throughout the night. We woke up to our last day to white everywhere.
A quick aside here to talk about toileting. Apparently the family didn't have a toilet. On the first day I was shown to the barn (unfortunately I was having stomach troubles, necessitating regular visits to the great outdoors) where I had to go in the corner with the pigs. It sounds terrible, and let me tell you, it was. After that D and I found a quiet corner of a field to relieve ourselves in (we weren't allowed to use the barn at night anyway because the dogs would bark and wake everyone up). So in the night I had to crawl out of a warm sleeping bag and scramble up a slope and under a fence - and bear in mind the second night it snowed all night! Very glad to be back in civilisation. Nice views though.
Our last day we went back to Songpan via a monastery. The going was slow through the snow and we had to walk some of the icy patches. We passed a team of yaks hauling logs uphill, but weren't allowed to take photos so you'll just have to imagine that bit. It snowed quite heavily on us for about an hour and we were shivering in our saddles. It certainly makes it picturesque though so not too much complaining. A quick wander around Songpan in the afternoon (ancient walls guarded by bronze warriors, covered bridges, impressive architecture etc) and back on the bus today for our 8 hour journey back into the grey.
Now debating the best course north, will keep you all updated as usual. Photos of horses and snow at: http://picasaweb.google.com/steelbaker/CentralChina
Love C&D
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Three Gorges
After a long convoluted booking process, us and the bikes managed to get onto a Chinese cruise ship up the Yangtze River. This was a 4 day exercise in not understanding what was going on. We started out with an extremely gray bus ride (our own private van so we could take the bikes) to an unknown destination to catch the boat. Turned out this destination was past the Three Gorges Dam, so we missed seeing that, which was one of the main points of the trip...
The next day we were herded onto a smaller boat, off to see something but we were of course unsure exactly what. It was a trip to experience the local "boat trackers" who used to pull ships up the river by hand against the current. This involved yet a smaller boat, and a lot of explaining of what was going on in Chinese. Mercifully our guide's megaphone ran out of batteries. At one point there was a group sing along.
After returning to the cruise ship we headed into the gorges proper. Massive cliffs towered over the river with rocks jutting about at odd angles, reaching up to 900m peaks above us. One rock was said to look like Chairman Mao. These gorges appear on the 10 Yuan note so there was much photo taking holding up a note. There was also a Chinese celeb of some sort on board (we named him "Square Jaw") so there was all sorts of swooning and grappling for group photos with him as well. We too were the subject of many photos - as soon as one of them plucks up the courage to ask, the dam bursts and we are mobbed.
There was a museum along the way, showcasing one of the towns that was covered by the rising waters behind the dam. We got a private tour from the curator, who quit his job three years beforehand to chronicle the event and save as many of the local artifacts as possible. It was obviously a pretty heart-wrenching experience for the townsfolk to be forcibly moved on and their town demolished before being innundated. Something like 1.5 million people have been forced out of their homes' to make way for the dam. No idea what help they got to find somewhere to go.
After this the trip was pretty boring, through gray concrete towns and factories, before an unceremonious wake-up knock at 6.30 am to evict us from the ship in Chongqing. This place has the worlds largest public toilet but in all the excitement (excrement?) we forgot and missed it. It was a massive town, something like 30 million in the area, with not much to attract us so we headed to the bus station to make our way to Chengdu. The ride between promised 4 days of pollution and muddy wet roads, and as my health was still far from 100% a bus was an attractive option. Despite the attraction there was much spitting on the floor, smoking, and someone stopping to take a dump on the side of the road in full view of the bus so we were very glad to disembark.
We're staying in a great guest house which fully caters to tourists - this means English speaking staff, a great restaurant, no smoking in the rooms, DVD's for hire, a book exchange, other travellers etc. It's very nice to be here and very relaxing. We spent a day wandering through town, stocked up on some English books, saw a large Chairman Mao statue, visited a park, and had some tea at a tea house.
Yesterday we spent half a day visiting the Panda Reserach Centre and ooohing and aaahing over the baby pandas. Really the best way to describe pandas is cute, incredibly cute. However evolution has it in for them in a big way and I'm not surprised they are so endangered. When they're born the first-time mother is usually pretty shocked with this ugly screeching underdeveloped thing that's shot out of her (literally shot, we saw a movie) and will often kill it. If she has twins, the chances of her looking after both are slim to none, so only one survives. This is if she gets pregnant at all - pandas are only receptive to sex 1-2days of the year and finding a mate is hard as they are fussy rooters and live far apart from each other so often can't even find each other. In addition the males penis is short and the females vagina long. Not to mention working up the energy to copulate. Pandas need to eat up to 16 hours of the day, because bamboo is the food of choice. Bamboo doesn't provide much energy and the panda can only extract 2% of the energy available. Bamboo has a nasty habit of flowering before completely dying out every 25 years or so, leaving the pandas no living habitat, so they starve to death. Luckily for them they are adorable and a valuable political commodity so a lot of effort is going into saving them from themselves.
It's hard to tear ourselves away from this guesthouse where we can speak in English and people understand us, but we're going to spend the next 5 days making our way to a town called Songpan up towards the Tibetian plateau to do some horse trekking. Then back on the bikes (after 3weeks off, eek!) and onward to Beijing!
We've got some more photos for you:
http://picasaweb.google.com/steelbaker/CentralChina
Until next time, C&D
The next day we were herded onto a smaller boat, off to see something but we were of course unsure exactly what. It was a trip to experience the local "boat trackers" who used to pull ships up the river by hand against the current. This involved yet a smaller boat, and a lot of explaining of what was going on in Chinese. Mercifully our guide's megaphone ran out of batteries. At one point there was a group sing along.
After returning to the cruise ship we headed into the gorges proper. Massive cliffs towered over the river with rocks jutting about at odd angles, reaching up to 900m peaks above us. One rock was said to look like Chairman Mao. These gorges appear on the 10 Yuan note so there was much photo taking holding up a note. There was also a Chinese celeb of some sort on board (we named him "Square Jaw") so there was all sorts of swooning and grappling for group photos with him as well. We too were the subject of many photos - as soon as one of them plucks up the courage to ask, the dam bursts and we are mobbed.
There was a museum along the way, showcasing one of the towns that was covered by the rising waters behind the dam. We got a private tour from the curator, who quit his job three years beforehand to chronicle the event and save as many of the local artifacts as possible. It was obviously a pretty heart-wrenching experience for the townsfolk to be forcibly moved on and their town demolished before being innundated. Something like 1.5 million people have been forced out of their homes' to make way for the dam. No idea what help they got to find somewhere to go.
After this the trip was pretty boring, through gray concrete towns and factories, before an unceremonious wake-up knock at 6.30 am to evict us from the ship in Chongqing. This place has the worlds largest public toilet but in all the excitement (excrement?) we forgot and missed it. It was a massive town, something like 30 million in the area, with not much to attract us so we headed to the bus station to make our way to Chengdu. The ride between promised 4 days of pollution and muddy wet roads, and as my health was still far from 100% a bus was an attractive option. Despite the attraction there was much spitting on the floor, smoking, and someone stopping to take a dump on the side of the road in full view of the bus so we were very glad to disembark.
We're staying in a great guest house which fully caters to tourists - this means English speaking staff, a great restaurant, no smoking in the rooms, DVD's for hire, a book exchange, other travellers etc. It's very nice to be here and very relaxing. We spent a day wandering through town, stocked up on some English books, saw a large Chairman Mao statue, visited a park, and had some tea at a tea house.
Yesterday we spent half a day visiting the Panda Reserach Centre and ooohing and aaahing over the baby pandas. Really the best way to describe pandas is cute, incredibly cute. However evolution has it in for them in a big way and I'm not surprised they are so endangered. When they're born the first-time mother is usually pretty shocked with this ugly screeching underdeveloped thing that's shot out of her (literally shot, we saw a movie) and will often kill it. If she has twins, the chances of her looking after both are slim to none, so only one survives. This is if she gets pregnant at all - pandas are only receptive to sex 1-2days of the year and finding a mate is hard as they are fussy rooters and live far apart from each other so often can't even find each other. In addition the males penis is short and the females vagina long. Not to mention working up the energy to copulate. Pandas need to eat up to 16 hours of the day, because bamboo is the food of choice. Bamboo doesn't provide much energy and the panda can only extract 2% of the energy available. Bamboo has a nasty habit of flowering before completely dying out every 25 years or so, leaving the pandas no living habitat, so they starve to death. Luckily for them they are adorable and a valuable political commodity so a lot of effort is going into saving them from themselves.
It's hard to tear ourselves away from this guesthouse where we can speak in English and people understand us, but we're going to spend the next 5 days making our way to a town called Songpan up towards the Tibetian plateau to do some horse trekking. Then back on the bikes (after 3weeks off, eek!) and onward to Beijing!
We've got some more photos for you:
http://picasaweb.google.com/steelbaker/CentralChina
Until next time, C&D
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
"This town is not for foren-jers"
Hello
Its been an eventful couple of weeks since the last update. Just when China was seeming O so easy, it proved to have a few tricks awaiting us.
We left Yangshou for Guilin, which was a massive city of neon and packed to the gills with Chinese tourists. From there we were quickly into the countryside enroute to the Dragon's Backbone Rice Terraces (I'm just going to go ahead and call these the most famous rice terraces in the world). After a big day ending up a steep 6km hill we came to Ping'An, a 600 year old Miao village perched on the mountain tops. This place is all about rice. The hills are huge and every inch is carved out into flat terraces so they can be flooded to grow the rice. The terraces flow on as far as you can see and must have taken the majority of those 600 years to build it seems. The village is really cool too, with wooden houses and their tiled rooves interconnected by a labyrinth of stone paths.
After tearing ourselves away from this place we headed north onto the worst road yet encountered. 50km of 'roadworks' but sort of an 8-year-old kid style road works where everything has been ripped apart very successfully and nothing put back together. We ran the full gammut of dust, mud, rock, 45degree dirt slopes... The town at the end of it all was a very welcome sight. Welcome for about 45 minutes until the police turned up.
This was our first raid, and consisted of two cops and an interpreter. Apparently the town was 'special' and not open to foreigners. We would have to leave. Where would we go on our bikes at 5pm? OK, you can stay the night but are not to leave the hotel room. What about dinner? OK, you can go to a restaurant. This went on for a while, our passports were taken away for further scrutiny, we were thumb printed, and finally given the ok to wander around town. Apparently we could bike to the next town "no problem" and the police there would be rung so as to be forewarned of our imminent arrival.
No problem eh? After a very unmemorable ride the next day we rode into town only to start one of the more memorable parts of the journey. Raid number 2 was three police and an interpreter - who was majoring in Japanese not English. Luckily we knew the score from the day before. However negotiations here were not quite as fruitful and it soon became apparent that our claims of poor us, biking in the dark, etc etc were not going to work. These ones had heard of buses, so decided we could get one of those. This resulted in a police escort through town on our bikes, and further police assistance in purchasing bus tickets (no queueing required), saving us a seat amid the scrum while I tied bikes on the roof, and a cheery wave as we were successfully run out of town. Our bus ride took 4 hours for 130km and we arrived to a freezing cold night, only to be turned away from a hotel, I think for being too dirty.
On to greener pastures. Back in the land of openness, we hit a small town called Fenghuang. This town is Chinese to the core, just as you may imagine China should be. Tiny cobbled alleys, red lanterns, a guesthouse overlooking a pretty river, old city walls, pagodas etc. It was packed with Chinese tourists (so that means KTV karaoke) and certainly dolled up for visitors but a fantastic place all the same. Spent an atmospheric evening wandering the streets and along the ramparts.
Next day was Dehang, a tiny village in yet another karst peak area. This place was well off the beaten track, at least at this time of year. No English in the entire town (we probably talked to all of them) and it took about an hour and a half to find somewhere to stay as there was no one around. Cows wandered the alleys (Claud found a cowpat in the dark that we had watched being made earlier), and we saw both our first stars and snow in Asia. Was extremely quiet, no KTV, no honking and very peaceful.
We were charging along at this stage, having easily clocked up our first 1000km in China, and passed 5250km overall. But then it came unstuck, the dream died. I (D) got sick yet again. This was the 3rd time in a week and about the millionth time it feels like on the trip. Was a nasty chest infection that had me bed ridden for 2 days of sweating myself to a state of near drowning, and unable to walk to the supermarket let alone bike 100km a day.
So public transport has been employed to varying degrees of success. To go north, we first had to go south. Then a train north that took a whole afternoon of bargaining at a train station that seemed to have no useful destinations at all. So we had to overshoot our intended town, stay another night and get a bus south again. All of this with no English, and me struggling to walk the length of the platform with a coughing seizure. But finally we have made it to Yichang on the Yangtze and holed up in a nice hotel (have not been pushing the limits of slumminess in China) to plot our next move.
Despite the odd issue we have been repeatedly surprised at the helpfulness of the Chinese who often go well above the call to sort us out. Generally if we turn up looking lost, someone will come over and take us under their wing. This took a bit of getting used to after Vietnam where such good natured help was non-existent and we found it hard to believe people actually wanted to be nice to us, but they do!
Blogspot is actually blocked in China but we have found a way around this. Unfortunately it means we cannot update our photos on this site as we could before but we can still put them up on the other site we were using. There are heaps of new photos up so here is a link (you might have to copy and paste it): http://picasaweb.google.com/steelbaker/SouthernChinaAndHongKong
Till next time
D & C
Its been an eventful couple of weeks since the last update. Just when China was seeming O so easy, it proved to have a few tricks awaiting us.
We left Yangshou for Guilin, which was a massive city of neon and packed to the gills with Chinese tourists. From there we were quickly into the countryside enroute to the Dragon's Backbone Rice Terraces (I'm just going to go ahead and call these the most famous rice terraces in the world). After a big day ending up a steep 6km hill we came to Ping'An, a 600 year old Miao village perched on the mountain tops. This place is all about rice. The hills are huge and every inch is carved out into flat terraces so they can be flooded to grow the rice. The terraces flow on as far as you can see and must have taken the majority of those 600 years to build it seems. The village is really cool too, with wooden houses and their tiled rooves interconnected by a labyrinth of stone paths.
After tearing ourselves away from this place we headed north onto the worst road yet encountered. 50km of 'roadworks' but sort of an 8-year-old kid style road works where everything has been ripped apart very successfully and nothing put back together. We ran the full gammut of dust, mud, rock, 45degree dirt slopes... The town at the end of it all was a very welcome sight. Welcome for about 45 minutes until the police turned up.
This was our first raid, and consisted of two cops and an interpreter. Apparently the town was 'special' and not open to foreigners. We would have to leave. Where would we go on our bikes at 5pm? OK, you can stay the night but are not to leave the hotel room. What about dinner? OK, you can go to a restaurant. This went on for a while, our passports were taken away for further scrutiny, we were thumb printed, and finally given the ok to wander around town. Apparently we could bike to the next town "no problem" and the police there would be rung so as to be forewarned of our imminent arrival.
No problem eh? After a very unmemorable ride the next day we rode into town only to start one of the more memorable parts of the journey. Raid number 2 was three police and an interpreter - who was majoring in Japanese not English. Luckily we knew the score from the day before. However negotiations here were not quite as fruitful and it soon became apparent that our claims of poor us, biking in the dark, etc etc were not going to work. These ones had heard of buses, so decided we could get one of those. This resulted in a police escort through town on our bikes, and further police assistance in purchasing bus tickets (no queueing required), saving us a seat amid the scrum while I tied bikes on the roof, and a cheery wave as we were successfully run out of town. Our bus ride took 4 hours for 130km and we arrived to a freezing cold night, only to be turned away from a hotel, I think for being too dirty.
On to greener pastures. Back in the land of openness, we hit a small town called Fenghuang. This town is Chinese to the core, just as you may imagine China should be. Tiny cobbled alleys, red lanterns, a guesthouse overlooking a pretty river, old city walls, pagodas etc. It was packed with Chinese tourists (so that means KTV karaoke) and certainly dolled up for visitors but a fantastic place all the same. Spent an atmospheric evening wandering the streets and along the ramparts.
Next day was Dehang, a tiny village in yet another karst peak area. This place was well off the beaten track, at least at this time of year. No English in the entire town (we probably talked to all of them) and it took about an hour and a half to find somewhere to stay as there was no one around. Cows wandered the alleys (Claud found a cowpat in the dark that we had watched being made earlier), and we saw both our first stars and snow in Asia. Was extremely quiet, no KTV, no honking and very peaceful.
We were charging along at this stage, having easily clocked up our first 1000km in China, and passed 5250km overall. But then it came unstuck, the dream died. I (D) got sick yet again. This was the 3rd time in a week and about the millionth time it feels like on the trip. Was a nasty chest infection that had me bed ridden for 2 days of sweating myself to a state of near drowning, and unable to walk to the supermarket let alone bike 100km a day.
So public transport has been employed to varying degrees of success. To go north, we first had to go south. Then a train north that took a whole afternoon of bargaining at a train station that seemed to have no useful destinations at all. So we had to overshoot our intended town, stay another night and get a bus south again. All of this with no English, and me struggling to walk the length of the platform with a coughing seizure. But finally we have made it to Yichang on the Yangtze and holed up in a nice hotel (have not been pushing the limits of slumminess in China) to plot our next move.
Despite the odd issue we have been repeatedly surprised at the helpfulness of the Chinese who often go well above the call to sort us out. Generally if we turn up looking lost, someone will come over and take us under their wing. This took a bit of getting used to after Vietnam where such good natured help was non-existent and we found it hard to believe people actually wanted to be nice to us, but they do!
Blogspot is actually blocked in China but we have found a way around this. Unfortunately it means we cannot update our photos on this site as we could before but we can still put them up on the other site we were using. There are heaps of new photos up so here is a link (you might have to copy and paste it): http://picasaweb.google.com/steelbaker/SouthernChinaAndHongKong
Till next time
D & C
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