Chengde and The Great Wall

We had three days in Chengde, with no planned itinerary which was quite good as it gave us plenty of time to relax and just do our own thing. The first day I slept in and then went off to The Summer Palace, which was where the emperorfamily used to reside during summer. It was nice, old buildings with pinetrees in the courtyards, and a huge park around it. All the interesting rooms were locked up though, so you could only peer in through the windows, and the rooms which were open mainly had exhibitions of vases and paintings. Spent a couple of hours wandering around the park which was really nice, it had a big lake in the middle and lots of tame deers! It was a bit hot though, getting well into the 30ies by now.

In the evening we all went out for a hotpot, which was of course great (as all the food is), had beef and prawns and sausage and a really good peanutsauce to go with it. And they served silkworms as snax!! Of course I had to try! They were not very tasty, just crunchy and not very pleasant... Went to a KTV-place after, which is karaoke for those of you who haven't been to China, but it wasn't very good as there were very few English songs.

The next day I went off to a temple with Mike, Rachel and John, which was nice (although getting slightly templed-out by now...). But the special thing about this one was that it had the biggest Buddha in the world of its kind. It was 22 meters high, made of 5 different kinds of wood and stood inside a temple. It was massive!!! And it had 40 arms, each holding an item like a flower or prayerbeeds etc. I managed to loose the others and I thought they had gone out so I went out but they weren't there so I just waited for them and it turned out they had gone behind the temple and discovered an area with loads of padlocks all over the place. Quite bummed I missed that.

After Chengde it was time for some excercise! Which was good, as I've eaten far too much on this trip... So we went to hike the Great Wall. We started off in Jingchanglian (or something like that...) and hiked 10 kilometers to Simtai. It was a great walk, although quite tireing as it was well over 30 degrees and lots of steep steps both up and down. Seemed a bit meaningless that once we had climbed all the steps up to a tower we had to go all the way back down!! Made it to the other end in about 4 hours, so it wasn't too bad. Did another part of it the next day which was a bit more touristy and a bit more tireing actually, because it had soooo many steps going up to the actual wall! We walked about an hour, did my "Kilroy was here"-photos as I remembered to wear my t-shirt, and a few with Ant wearing his Dragoman t-shirt aswell, and then tobogganed down (typ aking i bane) which was quite fun.

Arrived in Beijing today, and tomorrow we're off to the Summer Palace and the Forbidden City. It's much less polluted than I thought it would be! Can't believe I'm going home on Friday though. Don't want to leave!!!

New start

Leaving Xian was a tearful event, as it meant splitting up with the original group. We're only 6 from the original group now; me, Mike, Rachel, John, Ray and Liz. I really miss the others!!! We've got a new truck, Gertie, and a new guide, Ant, and a new driver, Adam. There are also 4 new people, so 10 altogether, which is an okay number.

Anyways, left Xian and headed for Mt. Kongtong which is the most sacred mountain in Taoism. There are lots of small temples on the top of lots of steep steps which were quite exhausting to climb up. Luckily I got some rest on the way as I had to pose for pictures with a few chinese people... The top provided some great views over green hills and vast countryside. Had a bushcamp at the lake at the bottom of the mountain where our new crew demonstrated their great cookingskills.

Can't really remember the right order of everything we've done in between then and now, but one day we went to a chinese disneyland kinda thingy where I went camelriding and took a zipline across a river which was great fun. We've also camped in traditional yerts (not quite sure about the spelling, you know the big round tents from Mongolia), in Inner Mongolia which was fun. We hired some horses and went for a ride which was nice, only the horses weren't exactly racehorses and our guide didn't seem like he was keen on going any faster than walkingpace. Anyways, it was nice to get out into the countryside. My bum was sore for a couple of days though as the saddles here are a tad harder than the ones I'm used to...

One night we went out for a hot-pot, which is a big pot cut in half where one half has a very hot soup in it and the other a mild soup and you have a heater in the middle of the table and heat up the soup and then you order different things which you cook yourself. We had meatballs, beef, bamboo and two types of mushroom and it was delicious! I must say, the food here in China is AMAZING!!! I'm stuffing myself at every meal and I would become seriously fat if I was to live here! They seem to have so many great sauces and marinades it makes everything taste delicious. I'm going to miss it when I get home!!

Right now we're in a city called Datong, which they seem to be rebuilding, all at once. Because of this there's a powecut across half the city which resulted in us staying in a hotel last night with no power and no water. And of course our room was on the 6th floor with no elevator. I'm glad we're not at altitude any more. And that we decided to change hotels tonight. Today we went to some caves which were really old with Buddhafigures carved out inside. Some were quite impressive! There was also a huge Buddha, about 20 meters tall which was impressive. Afterwards we went to a hanging monastery, which is a monastery which is built on a cliffwall in about 490 a.d. It has been rebuilt later though because it was destroyed at one point, but it was still very old and pretty. And a bit scary as it seemed to hang in thin air.

Driving further tomorrow towards Chengde, and then next Monday we'll be in Beijing!! Hope you're all having a great midsummernight. Hugs from China!

Lhasa to Xian

We left Lhasa early in the morning and drove to Namtso Lake, which is the highest saltlake in the world. It was amazing! Huge lake with snowcapped mountains surrounding it. We bushcamped not far from it, and woke up early next morning to a beautiful sunrise. Didn't get going quite as early as we'd hoped because we had a flat tire... After that was fixed we set off. We were supposed to drive all the way to Golmud, 1000 km, in just two days. You might think that it doesn't sound all that much, but in a truck that only does 60 km/h at the most and with bumpy roads and loads of roadworks and delays it took a loooong time.

The first night we ended up driving all night because we got held up by roadblocks for a few hours and when it was bedtime we were at the top of a mountainpass with snow all around us and it was freezing cold, so we decided to just keep going. Went for a walk up a hill at one of the roadblocks and the view was fantastic! Huge flat plains surrounded by beautiful green hills. The next day we got held up by roadworks again for about 7 hours, and after that there were loads of diversions and bumpy roads so we almost had an all-nighter again. There had been a flood on one of the diversions aswell so we had to zigzag our way through the water and hope we didn't get bogged like about 20 other trucks had been. We finally arrived in Golmud at about 5 in the morning and went straight to bed.

Only had a few hours in Goldmud before we drove off to the next campsite which was only a couple of hours drive. It was a great spot, on a flat desert. Got bogged on the way so all the guys got out and pushed, I wish I hadn't left my camera on the truck! Got to the camp pretty early so we all had a beer while the cookgroup started preparing dinner. Had a great night around the bonfire, grilling marshmellows and telling stories.

The next day we drove to another saltlake where we set up camp. Another great spot with good stories around the fire. I was in the cookgroup and we managed to find stuffed meatballs so we cooked them in a mushroom sauce with veggies and nudles. mmmm...

The next day it was time to drive to Quinghai Lake which is Chinas biggest lake. On the way there we stopped in a village which was really special, all the people were wearing beautiful dresses and costumes and the womens hair was plaited in tiny braids and fixed at the bottom to a kind of belt with lots of decorations.

At the lake there was a birdsanctuary we visited. There were loads of geese at one point which we watched throug windows in a sort of house. At another spot there were loads of big black birds (can't remember their name...) on a rock in the water. The lake was amazing, it is so big! It looked like the ocean, I couldn't get my head around that it was actually a lake. And the surrounding hills reminded me so much of the English countryside, it was really strange.

The day after we drove on towards Tongrin. Stopped for lunch in a restaurant where noone spoke English and they didn't have an English menu so we just pointed at a couple of bowls with food at the neighbouring tables which looked good. It turned out that one of them was a mutton-soup (we were very unsure of what kind of meat it was at first...) and the other was bits of fish and liver in a spicy sauce.

In Tongrin we visited a temple, or rather lots of small temples spread out over a big area. I got a bit lost and ended up being invited to drink tea and eat breadsticks with a couple of monks. They were very nice, but they didn't understand a word of English, so we ended up looking at my pictures and drinking buttertea.

Next stop was Liujiaxia. I thought it was going to be a small town but when we got there it was huge with really tacky neonlights everywhere!! Got there late at night and found a great nightmarket with loads of nice food before we went to bed. The next day we went on a boatcruise on the Gyantse River the whole day. It was very nice, we drove out to the Bingling Si grottoes where there are really old Buddhafigures cut out directly in the stone wall, and a huge Buddha aswell. It was about 30 meters high or something, quite impressive!

Langzou was our next stop, got there quite late aswell, and found a nightmarket again. Renate decided to be a bit experimental so she bought chickens feet, pigs toungue and pigs ears. I had to try when the opportunity was there! The feet were just really spicy, the toungue was alright, a bit more meaty at least, and the ears were just really chewy and not all that good. Went out for a few beers and ended up in a caraoke-bar all by ourselves. It was quite fun, and the most hardcore didn't get to bed untill 8 in the morning!

Had a couple of nice bushcamps, one on the top of a hill with great views of the terraced hills and one overlooking a reservoir where we enjoyed our last bushcamp before Xian. Here we've seen the terracotta warriors which were impressive.

Xian is the final city for this leg of the trip, and is where the group splits up. I go on to Beijing with 7 people from the original group and the rest go on to Hong Kong or go off on their own. I'm a bit sad that we're all splitting up cause it's been a great group and we've had such a good time. So tomorrow I set off with a new guide, new driver and new truck towards Beijing!

City Life

After being in the countryside for quite some time it was time to explore the citys. The first stop was Shigatse where we stayed for 2 nights. We got there in the late afternoon, so we didn't do all that much. Had dinner at a nice restaurant where I tasted Renates yaksteak! It was really good!

The next day we went to see the Tashlumpo-monastery, which is the biggest one in Tibet. I hadn't really given any thought to where we were going, so I'd put on a pair of trousers which reached to just over my knees... And of course that wasn't allowed so I had to borrow this really lovely bright orange sarong to put over.
The monastery was really nice, lots of different rooms with Buddha figures and gold. We also walked through a big room full of chanting monks which was quite special. Afterwards we walked around the whole monastery, which took about an hour. It was worth it though, cause we had some great views of the city.

After lunch a couple of us headed off to the local market. It wasn't that exciting, but we did see a scorpion!!! It was about 5 cm, just crawling around on the ground. I almost stepped on it, and the locals laughed when I jumped as I saw it.

The next day we drove to Gyantse, which was once an important city for trading. We started off at the monastery which was nice, the monks were making there really gorgeous mandalas out of coloured sand. Basically they are round figures made on the floor, about 2 meters in diameter and really really detailed.
Next to the monastery was a stupa which was 7 floors tall and with 77 rooms, and we climbed all the way to the top. Looked in some of the rooms, but they all contained buddhafigures in some way or another so we got bored after the first ten...
Had a great lunch with caramelized apples for desert, mmmm. After that we climbed to the top of the fort which used to protect the town in the old days. It was quite hard, as we were still at a high altitude. At the top they had a sort of museum, but it was just lots of large mannequin-dolls who looked really scary and with no explanation what they were doing. Went down a different way and ended up in the old part of town, where it seemed everybody owned a cow which they just tied up outside their door. So the whole street was full of cows!

The day after we set off to Lhasa, which is the biggest city in Tibet, and where the Dalai Lama used to live. The drive was about 240 km, and on the way we drove over some high passes, saw a glacier and had lunch by a beautiful lake. It's one of the most scenic drives we've had until now.

The second day in Lhasa we went to the Potala palace which is the palace buildt for the Dalai Lamas. We were only allowed to stay for an hour, so unfortunately we only got to see 20-something of the 1000 rooms. It was very nice, but unfortunately we weren't allowed to take any pictures inside. After lunch we went to see another monastery in town. Getting a bit tired of monasterys I must say...

In the evening it was party-time! Our tourleader Tamara and our driver Ian had been given a huge suite, so we all went there. Some of they guys had bought lots of beer, and some horrible Chinese white wine which was about 50% alcohol, so it turned out to be a good night!

Had yakburger for breakfast the next day before we went to see the last monastery for a while. It wasn't all that different, but they demonstrated how they printed their prayerbooks and we got to see a lot of monks debating in a big courtyard. They sat in groups, and one of them stood in the middle asking questions and clapping. Pretty special!

Today Maeve and I have just wandered around looking at shops and souvernires. Tomorrow we're heading north towards Golmud, back to camplife!