The Sea of Clouds!
Try fishing in this lake - the fish would see you coming from down the road..
Perfect Pandas
NEEHOW!!!! This is our final post from the INCREDIBLE COUNTRY OF CHINA!!!!
And let me tell you, this has been an extraordinary experience! When we came here we really thought this place would be tough to travel, given we speak about 10 words of mandarin; well maybe a few more, but nothing really useful. China is now very geared up to tourism and it’s quite easy to travel around, order food, find accommodation, sites, and party!
Something I heard which is so true about China:
- The only thing with four legs a Chinese person will not eat is a chair and the only thing with wings they won’t eat is a plane!
- If Adam and Eve were Chinese, we would all be in the Garden of Eden because they would have eaten the snake!
So just to sum up a few things about China as we are leaving this great adventure in the homeland of Chairman Mao;
China is not one country; each of its 32 provinces is kind of like a country. For example, they usually have about 20-75 million people in each one and on average a province is about the size of a European country. Each with its own special cuisine, sometimes language, sometimes currency (Hong Kong, Macao, and they would say Taiwan), topography and people. Just to elaborate a little bit, China is a serious melting pot; not quite like the States, but more of an Asian melting pot. It has about 50 different ethnicities. So when you go to Japan – Japanese people look pretty similar and can easily be distinguished if you know what you are looking for. However, Chinese people look very different. Han is the major ethnicity and they are the most common race by a long shot (another you would know is Tibetan). Let me tell you a bit about cuisine. You know how people say Chinese food in the West is different than in China; well that’s partly true. Cantonese food is from Hong Kong and that is basically what the West calls Chinese food. Each of these provinces has their own special dishes and many of these things are DELICIOUS! One of my favorites is Sichuan where we are now. Stealing a line from my guidebook; “People come to China for food, but they come to Sichuan for flavor” – this is absolutely true; its seriously good and spicy! For topography, well, let me say you do not need to be a nature lover to be awestruck at the beautiful scenery China has to offer – have a look at the pics and google some of the national parks we visited; its truly amazing, but as I mentioned they have a fair amount of people in China so often you do share these sites with many others. However, the Chinese do not tend to get off the beaten path, so its very easy to separate yourself.
LADY GAGA – If I had a Chinese Yuan for every time someone said Lady Gaga about Marina I would have paid for our whole trip here. You don’t hear anything, but Chinese being spoken and then Lady Gaga and you see them pointing at her.. HILARIOUS!!!
So what have we been up to… Well let me tell you, this has been one of our best weeks… Not just because it was my birthday and we went to Hooters, but we did some seriously cool stuff! And that we went to Hooters, if I didn’t mention that! :D
This past week: Chengdu > Jiuzhaigou > Chengdu > Leshan > Emei Shan > Chengdu
Sunday – Pandas: So when I wrote you last we had just come back from seeing Sichuan’s famous Panda reserve! Yes, Pandas! As they are only up for about 2 hours a day, we had to get there for about 7am. This place has about 100 of the world’s 3000 pandas and let me tell you, it’s a pretty cool thing to see. If you are an animal lover, it’s worth the trip from St. Louis just to see this place. They are absolutely gorgeous playing around fighting, eating their bamboo shoots, and it seems they are acting for the camera, but apparently it’s pretty normal behavior; other than they are more used to humans. That night we went to the Chinese Theatre and watched the actors change masks, almost magically! Pretty cool stuff! And most importantly, this day we sorted our trip to Tibet! So we were very pumped that we would be going to the controversial place which is meant to be one of the gems of Asia!
Monday – Bus: As the roads to Jiuzhaigou National Park are dangerous (frequent earthquakes have almost pummeled some parts of the road with boulders) we needed to travel during the day by bus. Nothing better than a 12 hour bus ride to liven the spirits!
Tuesday – The Land of Turquoise Lakes: Well, this place was really worth it. The Chinese rate Jiuzhaigou as one of the country’s top 3 national parks and I can absolutely see why. The park was littered with waterfalls and crystal clear turquoise lakes. When I say crystal clear – it is like out of this world; you can see the bottom of the middle of the lake! It’s unreal, sometimes about 30 feet (10 meters) deep! And the color bluer than the Caribbean sea – Google this place – it’s really this beautiful; we also have a picture on the email.
Wednesday – Bus: Well, I thought the last bus ride was bad, but this time on the way they had closed the road due to road works – so we had to go around and had a 14 hour trip back to Chengdu , but I’m just glad because I made it back for my birthday the next day :D
Thursday – My Birthday: Firstly, as everyone in London knows, I like a big party for my birthday – I’m sure many of you can remember the hangovers from the last one in the German beer hall! ;D So we had a nice lazy day to start. I decided my main present would be western food today. As we have had about 2 or 3 western meals the entire time this would be a real treat! After a big American breakfast with bacon, eggs, and hash browns, we went shopping – actually for Marina :D she needed some warm Tibet & Nepal clothes. However after that it was back to me, so we went for some afternoon drinks in Shamrocks pubs and played a bit of pool. That night we went to Hooters from some delicious American grub! Of course indulging in their world famous Chicken wings – although we ordered half of them Sichuan style which is hotter than anything I’ve had at Hooters in America! Later we went back for some beer pong at Shamrocks! Definitely a fun night – and a great way to spend my 28th Birthday ;)
Friday – Worlds Biggest Budda: I wasn’t up to waking up so early, but we caught the 0840 bus to Leshan to see the world’s biggest Budda. This statue was 71 meters tall and certainly worth a visit! Even his toenails were probably longer than a small car! After we travelled to Emai Shan to prepare for our next day accent of Mount Emei!
Saturday – Mount Emei: When I’ve mentioned climbing mountains on the past blogs, let me tell you, those were all easy! Including Mt Fuji compared to what we did yesterday! Sitting here with my legs aching, I feel very accomplished. So just to explain what Mt Emei is, it’s not just a mountain, but is a Taoist holy mountain. The mountain is full of monasteries and temples and you can stay at many of these. So most people hike a bit and stay somewhere on the mountain. We had a different objective – to get to the top the same day! Yes, we are a bit ridiculous sometimes and also competitive when we heard others only making it half way in a day. So with all of our strength and courage we legged it up probably 10’000’s of stairs (Taoist mountains are full of stairs strangely) past aggressive monkeys, and 32km (20 miles), and 9.25 hours later, we were at the top. Just to clarify this accomplishment, it wasn’t just 32km up to 3100meters (10,000 feet), it was up and down a lot; hence the distance. Seeing the sunset last night was priceless. And the Tsingtao beer watching this; yes I had to give in; they didn’t have Heineken up there . We stayed last night on the top of the mountain in a nice hotel, but without heating and this place was posh – just seems the norm up there. Although this morning it was so foggy that we couldn’t see the sunrise, but forget that as we are still so pumped we did this mountain in a day that we are on a high!
With my fingers hurting, I think I will leave you with this as I’m already excited for Lhasa, Tibet tomorrow. Our flight is at 9am so another early morning – after all, this isn’t vacation as I said before :D
AND let me tell you the exciting part; after Lhasa we make our way to………………MT EVEREST! Yes, in a week, we will be at the Mt Everest base camp!!! Before you get worried, we are not going to climb it… all the way, maybe a bit :D So we have one week in Tibet and then we go across the border to Nepal!
Zajian – see you next week!
Dan and Marina
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