Shivering in Shangri-la

Again, I am a little behind in the updates but getting closer. However, this one is only 6 weeks late.

I took some holiday from school with the intention of finally getting round to trekking Tiger Leaping Gorge and once again my plan failed me.

As an extra bonus it was Halloween weekend so I thought I had missed the party the school makes us put on. Annoyingly someone decided that this year we were to put on two, I missed one but not the other. The Friday night was a party for the primary school kids and their parents so I had the ones in my classroom, racing with balloons between their feet or knees. It was hilarious and only one person fell over.

world's largest prayer wheel

whats left of the old town

I jumped on a train to LiJiang on the Saturday and arrived early Sunday morning. The bus to Tiger Leaping Gorge was cheap and fairly regular so I had no problem getting a ticket. I did however have trouble staying awake on the bus and sailed straight past the gorge only to wake up about half an hour outside ZhongDian or Shangri-la (it was renamed in 2002 for tourism reasons). I had no idea where I was going and it only clicked when we arrived and I checked with the ticket guy. They thought I was hilarious and called over several people to tell hem what I had done, helpfully they all laughed at me too. One was actually helpful and told me about a nice hotel and dropped me off. Shangri-la is at over 3000 meters altitude and so was pretty chilly. Luckily I had packed for hiking and so had lots of shorts and t-shirts and not loads else. So when it started to snow I was only a little freezing (sarcasm, I froze and spent three days looking for fireplaces in cafes and bars).

World's largest Buddhist monastery

Most of the old part of town was destroyed in a fire over the summer so lots of building work. The hotel owner was telling me that although pretty the old town was a tourist trap and he was hopeful some of the traditional elements could be restored with the new build. Time will tell I guess, but I would be interested in going back to see what they make of it.

ZhongDian is a hugely religious and spiritual place, so most of the things to see are monasteries or temples. Although I have seen lots of temples in China, the ones I visited In ZhongDian were different and so very impressive and interesting places to look round.

 I spent a few days chilling (literally) in ZhongDian and loved how relaxed and easy going the place felt. After about 3 days I jumped on a bus back to LiJiang before heading back to Kunming and work. I have been to LiJiang so I have ticked off the highlights tour of the town, so this time I took advantage of the warm weather and sat in the park with my book for a  few hours before finding a place to stay for the night.

I ended up in a YHA dorm room of about 30 beds and nothing else. It was amazingly cheap but the public bathrooms outside of the hostel were much nicer than anything in the room. Luckily I managed to snag a bed on the opposite end of the dorm to the bathrooms so I wasn't took bothered by them. I reluctantly got the train back to Kunming and back to work.

Caves in AnShun Day 2

After getting back to AnShun town and having a speedy shower we went to investigate the food market street we had been told about. It was about half a mile of market stalls selling some of the best food i have had in Southern China. Everything was really cheap so we just bought loads of stuff to try and if it as no good we went and got something else. We found a place that sold ribs and they were amazing. So good in fact that we went back the next day and got some more.

We had an early night and a chilled Tuesday morning before heading out to the Dragon Pool Caves. We used public buses so it took hours but was amazingly cheap. Somehow I ended sitting in the front seat of the mini bus so I had an unobstructed view of the terrifying road with drop we were hurtling down. If we ignore the break neck speed we were travelling at, it was actually beautiful and impressive scenery.

The Cave itself is in a smaller scenic area with a waterfall and another trail to follow. There were no signs in English or Chinese so we got lost constantly and found no-one but grumpy and unhelpful staff. The trail to the cave took about an hour on which there were several other little scenic attractions as they were called. One area was called "fun with stones" which was most certainly a lie. there were stones but there was nothing fun at all about them.

We jumped into a little boat to go into the cave and were sped into the middle and back out again all in about 5 minutes. The cave was fairly impressive but not as good as the Internet or the tourist board had made us believe. We headed back to AnShun feeling a little cheated and deflated.


 Karen had heard of a temple in town that she wanted to see and as we had plenty of time to kill we went in search of it. Many misdirections and wrong buses later we found it and discovered that it was at the end of the food market we had dinner at the previous night. On the bright side that was dinner for the Tuesday sorted. The temple was small and deserted so we sat and watched the sun set and then went and gorged on ribs for the second night running. Our train was supposed to leave at about half nine but was delayed a few hours. By the time it turned up we were both freezing and shattered and very eager to get to bed. Unfortunately the train had started in Shanghai 30 hours previously so it was in a disgusting state. No bathrooms were working, there was rubbish and half eaten food everywhere not to mention smoking people in the beds. Thankfully we were only on the train for 8 hours so it could have been a lot worse.

It was a speedy trip but definitely worth seeing.

Waterfalls in AnShun. Day 1

I am hugely behind on my travel updates, I went to AnShun back in October but have been alarmingly busy but that's for later.



First area

AnShun is about 8 hours away from Kunming by train so a weekend was plenty. It was just me and Karen who planned ever minute of our trip. For once all I had to do was turn up and do as I was told.

It was the usual weekend away routine, Sunday over night train and back again on the Wednesday morning.

We arrived into AnShun early on the Monday morning and jumped into a mini van with a bunch of strangers who were also going to the waterfall scenic area. It was only about an hours drive but it was an hour spent talking to people who just had the stupidest foreigner related questions. "Do all foreigners eat lots of pizza?" "Is there Chinese food in England?" and so on.....



Second area cave

HuangGuoShu waterfall scenic area is actually split into three areas which are about 25Kilometers apart. Our driver had a special licence so he could drive between the areas inside of the park. everyone else jumped on the public buses that run all the time. The first one was a small-ish waterfall and a short walk along a  river.

The second area was similar looking to the Stone Forest and had a fairly large cave also along the river. The cave was full of stalagmite and tites which had all been lit up bright colours so it had a Disney feel to it. Regardless it was impressive and Karen and I spent ages playing with cameras and phones trying to get one to work in the dark.

Second area waterfall

The final area was HuangGuoShu waterfall itself. reports varied but the best we could work out it's the tallest waterfall in China and the widest in Asia. Again we still aren't completely sure on the exact record as even in the park the signs didn't all agree.

There was a purpose built trail that followed one side of the river, went behind the waterfall and then down the other side of the river and finally crossing the river back to the beginning. We climbed hundreds of steps up to the top of the trail (stopping occasionally for a rest and photographs). The whole trail took just under an hour and we were shattered at the end, annoyingly we then had to walk back up to the car park which was a further couple of hundred steps. A very good work out for the legs but which nearly killed Karen.

We stayed in this nasty little hotel by the train station and the phrase "you get what you pay for" definitely applied. We payed £4 each for the night so I am sure the state of the room can be imagined.

HuangGuoShu waterfall



Boating in Tam Coc

Another of the day trips I managed to go on was to a scenic area called Tam Coc. It's about a three hour drive from Hanoi and could not be more different. I get the impression that the area doesn't see a load of international tourists as no-one and nothing was in English, generally the signs are in English even is the people don't speak it. However they clearly get lots of people going there as there were hundreds of the little boats that we hired and miles of parked bicycles for hire.

As I was on an organised tour I was expecting a certain amount of shopping stops and people trying to sell us stuff, however it was clear that the guide had deals with particular shops as he would march us past many that were identical to get to one he approved of.

We first stopped at the ancient Capital of Vietnam which was a time filler as otherwise the day would have been a little empty, there was nothing there just a car park which apparently was the spot the old palace was on. A little disappointing and very little time was spent here.

Next we went for lunch and then to the boats. The boats were rowed by locals who were keen to make some extra money in tips. They fussed about us in the sun, if our seats were comfy enough and panicked if they thought we were thirsty.

The trip took about an hour and a half in which we travelled down a little river, thought some caves then turned back. The area is famous for its Karsk mountain formations which seem to be all over the place in Vietnam and South West China. The stone forest is very similar and (for avid readers of Claire vs China) the GuiZhou scenic areas in visited a few months back.

After the boat trip we were given bikes, pointed in a vague direction down a dirt road and told to be back in 40 minutes. Our guide was very little above useless, he didn't want to know and later confessed to it being his last day. However without supervision we managed to cycle through some much nicer 'off-the-beaten-track' walkways around some rice field. We were very lucky to be going past them as the sun was setting making it really rather pretty. Myself and a few others from the tour were lucky enough to get half decent bikes so the uphill part of the journey was easy, some others were not so lucky and ended up pushing their one speed death traps back to the meeting point.

All in all the place was beautiful but the tour was terrible, if I can help it I don't use organised day tours but this place would have been impossible to get to without speaking the language. Never mind it can't be helped.

Motorbiking round Mai Chau

I left Sapa and made my way back to Lao Cai to get the overnight train to Hanoi. Somehow I managed to pay for a hard sleeper bunk (cheapest) but got given a ticket for a soft sleeper which was a nice little bonus. The train takes about 10 hours and gets into Hanoi at 6 in the morning. I was lucky and bumped into some fellow Kunming holiday goers who knew the way from the train station to the old quarter so I didn't have to fight with taxi drivers telling me my hostel didn't exist (the current scam sweeping Asia).

Regular readers (always wanted to say that) will know that I have already been to Hanoi so I should still vaguely remember where the hostel was and managed to get there with only one slight mess up in directions. Hanoi Backpackers, cheap and chaotic, has become known for its tours and so most people seem to be staying there just for those. consequently the people in my room changed every night and no-one seemed to stick around for more than a day or two. I however was there for 5 days as I was based in Hanoi and just did one night or day trips out of the city.

My first trip was to Mai Chau valley where I stayed in a "home stay" which turned out to be a dormitory style room on top of a local families house. they cooked for us and took us out on tours, and we all chipped in with the chores so all in all it worked pretty well. The first day was a bicycle tour around the farms and local villages in the area. Again it was a painfully hot day and I was constantly adding suncream desperate not to burn more than I had managed on the bike in Sapa. the family and the hostel have a stock of mix matched bikes that they lent us for the tour, mine was a bright pink think that had no breaks, instead you had to pedal backwards to slow down. we cycled for about 2 hours in a huge circle and by the end of it I still wasn't used to the breaks.

The evening was spent having terrifying motor bike lessons (in Vietnamese) and eating the evening meal. Our lessons were basically a introduction to the bike and a drive down a straight bit of road and back again. As this was my first time on a motorbike driving for myself I was a little nervous and all over the place. I went to bed repeating what to do in my head not feeling very confident at all.

There was literally nothing for about half a mile so we were attacked by every bug and ended up in the mosquito nets upstairs still drinking and talking in the dark.

The second day consisted of a 40km motorbike ride to a lake and a well needed refreshing swim. we had to take the ride pretty slowly as we were all still getting used to the bikes and changing gears. I had taken to practising going up and down gears on the flat main roads, until I got told off of course. We went past a waterfall and stopped for a break and some pictures before carrying on to the lake.

We all piled into a very small fishing boat that had been hired for the hot and tired foreigners to take a swim and did just that. The water was beautifully warm if an odd colour and we spent nearly half an hour just clinging to the side of the boat and chilling out.

Sadly this was the end of our mini adventure in Mai Chau as we had to get back to the room, grab our stuff and pile back into a bus heading for Hanoi. The bus journey back was not at all relaxing as the driver seemed to be in a very bad mood and a hurry. We zipped around the side of mountains and flew down teh main highways all the tiem with huim shouting out of the window at the poor people he had just forsed off the road. Needless to say we were all very glad to get back and out of his bus!

October Holidays; SAPA!

October rolled round again which is only important for one reason. National Day Holiday! A whole week of; no kids, no lesson planning, no alarms, no classes and no grown up behaviour of any kind. A week to look forward to!!!!

This year things were a little more last minute than I normally like, my passport was again in the VISA office and there were no guarantees that I would get it back before the holiday started so I couldn't book anything just in case. My plan was to go and visit Tom and Karina in Cambodia but by the time I did get my passport back prices for flights were stupidly high (I could almost get home for the same price) so plan B it was. Back to Vietnam but this time by bus.

From Kunming it only take 7 hours to get to HeKou (which is the China side town on the border) and from there you just walk across a bridge into Vietnam. Passport checks took forever on both sides so the whole process took close to an hour.

Once in Lao Cai (Vietnam side of the border) I headed for Sapa. After a lot of walking about aimlessly I spotted a bus with Sapa written on the back. Fairly certain that was the bus I wanted I ran for it but missed it by only a few seconds. A little post van pulled up and said he was going to the same place and he could give me a ride. 10,000 dong later (about £1.50) and an hours terrifying roller coaster ride of a journey I was in Sapa.

Sapa has become a popular place for tourists who want to experience rural Vietnam and see some very impressive rice paddy scenery. Most hotels offer guided treks and motor bike tours for rock bottom prices, huge competition has kept the prices low. Sadly the town itself is just one huge tourist trap; every restaurant sells western food and street sellers swarm all over the roads trying to get you to buy little "handmade" bags and wallets. I got out of the town as fast as I could and went down into the valley to recommended Cat Cat village. Its only a 3km walk but the roads and steep and hard going, half way down I stopped for breakfast and a photo break.

The village itself is (as I soon found out) a purpose built "rural experience" at the beginning of a trail through the bottom of the valley. Its 40,000 dong entry (about £1.20) and takes close to two hours at a slow and chilled pace. The trail starts by going though a little shopping area and then calms down to a steep path heading for a river and waterfall area. I blasted past the shops not really interested in filling my bag so early in my trip and went straight to the waterfall. I have a real soft spot for rivers, lakes waterfalls anything with water really and so sat there perfectly content, with a beer naturally, for close to half an hour. I had been told the remainder of the trail was a little uneventful so I didn't really see much need to rush.

Having finished my drink I carried on. The rest of the trail followed a small river and was a little uneventful. The bridges were impressive, especially given how old they were but other than that not loads to do or see so I made my way back up the now horribly steep valley side back to Sapa. The walk nearly killed my in the heat and I managed (despite wearing factor 50) to burn my shoulders. Nearly on my hands and knees I crawled back to the main square of Sapa, I must have looked as knackered as i felt because motorbike drivers from all over the square ran to offer me a lift. Annoyingly at the bottom of the hill these smug looking gits were nowhere to be seen!

I hired one to drive me out to the silver waterfall I had been told about that was close to 12km away and off we set.

Mountain climbing(ish) in Dali.

Having been to Dali many MANY times before, finding new and still enjoyable things so do had become a little bit challenging. One of the things I personally had wanted to try was to go up the mountains, I had come close a few times but was normally stopped by bad weather or a landslide so I just hadn't managed it......until now!

Nat, Jacki, Rose and I had decided on a girls weekend away, before Nat and Jacki left for England, which generally means a hop skip and jump on an overnight train to sunny and chilled out Dali. We do the journey so often that it is a really simple and well timed trip. Off the train at the other end, into a taxi to the hostel, a quick nap and breakfast in the Bad Monkey. Easy!

Monday was spent chilling outside the bar watching the world go by and just generally doing as little as four people can do without turning into statues. Shopping in Dali is great if you want something trinkety and lots of them, but for something a bit different its not so great. Nat and I did all of our Xmas shopping there so we know all of the good places to buy things for rock bottom prices. We blasted between a few select shops and then back to the bar for a well deserved beer.

On the second day of our trip we had planned to go up the mountain. Information wise we had none; what we did have was a vague general direction (uphill) and a few hours to kill. We started up a road that looked promising, at one point we could see the track that the path and cable car take up the mountain and just used that as a compass point.

It was blisteringly hot and walk up to the start is fairly steep, about half an hour later we arrived hot and very sweaty to the beginning of the cable car up the mountain. We knew it was expensive (for China standards) but nearly £30 for a forty minute car seemed unreasonable. After getting to the top though we felt a little less ripped off as it was really quite impressive.

The cable car is in two sections, the first took us to the top of the first ridge and the second car took us over a pretty hefty valley and up to the summit.

At 3900 meters above sea level it was much cooler up there and a welcome break from the stiffing heat of Dali. We spent about half an hour at the top before having to head back down for closing. We jumped in a little tuctuc van thing and bounced back to the bottom of the road and naturally headed to the Bad Monkey and yak steak.

Stone Forest: Does what it says on the tin!

So after over 3 years of living in Kunming, I finally made it to the Stone Forest.

Nat and I had a free weekend so we decided to head there for an afternoon of sight seeing. We met for breakfast in the morning and spent a good hour trying to work out if it was going to rain. We consulted about six different weather forecast sites and they all told us something different. After giving up with the Internet we gave in an just went.

All we knew was that we could get a bus from the East bus station, so we went and managed to buy tickets with almost no problem. There were a bunch of buses heading to the forest so we got on one and just waited for it to fill up and move off. An hour later we were there!

The entrance is not very clearly marked so there was a fair amount of wandering about lost and confused. Eventually we found it but it was definitely more by luck and following people who looked like they knew where they were going.

Apart from the entrance and a few other popular photo spots, we managed to avoid most of the crowds. As soon as we could we got off the main paths and just walked about in the areas where there didn't seem to be too many people. A good tactic was to listen for the nasty blasted music and walk in the opposite direction!

The whole park is just one big view point so there is only so much to actually do but loads to see. We had been advised to take something to drink so I had made some pre-mix and just chilled out.


There is an area close the entrance which has the Stone Forest's name on the rocks. Most of the Chinese tourists were trying to get their pictures taken with the name in the background, so the whole place was rammed with people. We managed to get out of the area by blasting up a side road and getting back to the entrance.

We spent close to three hours in the park before the scenery started to feel repetitive and we decided to start home. Again the buses just wait to fill up and then they drive off, there was a bit of a scramble to get on the bus but we are well practised in the art of bus shoving and got on no problem.

All in all a good afternoon out, worth a visit but only once. I can finally say I have been though, Tick in the box.

A quick trip to GuiZhou

GuiZhou is a neighbouring province to Yunnan, whose borders are only about 5 hours away on the train. Several places had been recommended to me and so, when very bored in the office, I began researching and planning a mini trip.

It is not really near any other big tourist places so its relatively unknown, which means there is almost no information about places to go on the Internet. Most of our trip was guess work but it all worked out alright, I'll get to that later.

We nearly missed our train, raced though the station, flew down the platform and threw ourselves onto a train. About 2 minutes later the train moved, we got to our seats a little stressed and more than a little tired.

Our first day was a rainy one but we were in the amazing MaLing Gorge, luckily, as we managed to stay out of most of the rain. Lots of the paths had overhangs so we stayed relatively dry. The humidity was crippling so coats were just not a good idea. The gorge is only about 15 minutes drive from the train station and we found it more by accident than anything else. To avoid the people yelling at us in the station for taxis we just got onto the nearest bus, which helpfully drove over the gorge and pulled over to let us off. A few minutes a walking and we were there.

To make things even easier, the Chinese have built a glass lift down into the gorge so the whole thins can be done with very little walking. High heel friendly nature sights are becoming more popular.

The gorge has a river running through it so we walked up one side of the river, crossed over a slightly scary and rickety looking suspension bridge and walked back up the other. The whole walk only took about an hour but we stopped for plenty of pictures. Slightly annoyingly the pictures really don't do the place justice as the rain stopped them from coming out as nice as it really was on the day. Every site I had found on the Internet with any information about the gorge referred to it as the Lost World of China and I think I would agree. A dinosaur would not have seem massively out of place here.

As it was raining I think we were the only people in the gorge, which was fantastic. It did mean however that getting from the gorge to the hotel I had booked was looking like it was going to be almost impossible. We asked at the ticket booth about buses and taxis and she just kept saying impossible. Then she shouted over to the guy in the little shop next to the office and told him he had to take us to our hotel. 10RMB each. He had to make 2 journeys but he didn't seem all that bothered.

 Our hotel was so much better than expected. I had found it through another travel blog I had found, and googled a phone number. No idea what we were going to I was a little nervous but I don't think I am exaggerating when I say it was the best hotel I have stayed in. 128RMB for a double room I have paid more for rooms in hostels. We definitely fell on our feet with that one!


On the second day I had hired two drivers to take us to the scenic area. We still had slightly overcast weather but no rain, which was lucky as there was absolutely no cover in the park. We jumped on a golf cart looking thing and blasted round the park at break neck speed. We stopped about 5 times on the high road for photo stops but then sped through the lower parts. We were finished in the park after only a little over an hour. The drivers had given us their phone numbers and told us if we finished early we could call them and they would take us somewhere else.

We called them and they drove us to a lake. The lake itself was not all that impressive but the drive there was through some very impressive dinosaur worthy scenery. We got to the lake but didn't stay very long as it was just a dock really.

We went to find a place for some food and bumped into the drivers. One of them decided that the cook was too busy and was taking too long. So he went into the kitchen and just helped out. The food was fantastic and we stuffed ourselves silly with it.

Then back in the car to the train station.

Duck, duck, duck and more duck.

Forbidden City

Military Museum

DUCK, DUCK, DUCK, DUCK!!!

Beijing has one or two things to offer in the sightseeing department. So we got to work and started working down the list. Naturally we saw Tian'amen square and the Forbidden City. In itself a mammoth task, taking most of the day. The city took us hours and luckily wasn't too busy, so we managed to get a few decent pictures with only about a thousand other tourists in them.


Reminding Tom who is boss

After those two we were fairly shattered but still, we headed down to WangFuJing food street to see people eating bugs and other weird things on sticks. Unfortunately the amount of things on sticks have greatly diminished from only a few years ago and the street was just one long shopping alley full of novelty chopsticks and silly hats. Still some of the stalls had food but nothing like what it used to be like.

Of course we did a day on the wall. Climbing the damn thing nearly killed me, steep steps in nasty humidity and heat does not make for a relaxed wander about the wall. The weather was hot and humid so the visibility was slightly poorer than it could have been but still a very impressive sight. Not to mention much easier than my first visit in the snow nearly 4 years ago! To get to the wall we took the cable car/ski lift up and the toboggan back down. There were loads of idiot Chinese guys in front who thought it was funny to stop and go really slowly. They got what was coming to them when a chain of people (including Tom) slammed into the back and one lost his flip flops. I nearly died laughing!

Otherwise Tom did lots of shopping, after a few bartering tips and team pressuring. Tom would stand and try to get a cheaper price and I would walk off saying "oh look they have some here." It was a well rehearsed and successful system!

Tom flew home on the Monday and I on the Tuesday, sadly to work on Wednesday. Holiday over!

Report over for now.