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9/22/2007 to 9/24/2007 | Tibet  12► After living on instant noodle soup and going without a shower for 10 days, arriving in the town of Saga with a choice of restaurants and most importantly public pay hot showers, was a welcome sight despite its grubby Chinese buildings. We had no trouble with the authorities this time and arrived […] 9/17/2007 to 9/19/2007 | Tibet  12► According to Tibetan Buddhists completing the kora (walking) around the sacred Mt. Kailash rids one’s self of the sins (negative karma) accumulated over a lifetime. It’s a bit tougher than walking in to a confessional at your local Catholic Church, but then again Tibetan Buddhism is not a religion for those wishing […] 9/13/2007 to 9/16/2007 | Tibet  12► I decided to play by the rules for my journey out to western Tibet and the sacred Mout Kailash, home to the Hindu gods, a pilgrimage destination for Hindus, Tibetan Buddhists, and tourists alike. The Chinese government tries its best to make the pilgrimage to this most sacred of mountains as difficult […] 9/9/2007 to 9/10/2007 | Tibet  12► Eager to begin the trek and not knowing how long the first day would take us we left Ganden with out really exploring the monastery. However, it was one of the only major monasteries in the area that I did not visit on my first trip and having seen the amazing setting […] 9/5/2007 to 9/9/2007 | Tibet  12► As of September 1st “the powers that be” here in Tibet (i.e. the Chinese Government) decided that it would now take 10 days to get a permit for Mount Kailash instead of the previous 3 days. Having been to most of the attractions around Lhasa on my pervious trip I jumped at […]  Upon reaching the provincial capital of Xining from Xiahe, I decided to head out along the Hexi corridor, a valley between the Tibtan plateau on the south and the mountains of the Gobi desert on the north. The geography forms a natural channel leading out of China to the west and central Asia […]  123► The city of Xiahe, in China’s Gansu province, is home to the massive Tibetan monastery of Labrang. I had timed my arrival to coincide with a festival on the 20th of August. There were a lot of pilgrims performing the kora, circumambulation, around the monastery. The monastery was one of the most […]  12► The small Tibetan town of Langmusi straddles the border between the Chinese provinces of Sichuan and Gansu. It has become a popular stop for tourists traveling between these two provinces via the Tibetan plateau due two the two monasteries in town and the surrounding jagged mountain landscape. Of course with the tourist […]  From the small Tibetan town of Langmusi seven of us from the hostel I was staying at headed over to the nearby town of Maqu for another horse racing festival. Unlike the races at Litang and Yushu, they had a circular 1 km long track at Maqu. There was only one race in […] I arrived in Hongyuan just before 9:00 am, a starkly ugly city, especially in contrast to the beautiful scenery that passed by my window on the bus ride into town. But I had known that the attraction here was not the city but rather the grasslands and nomads that surround it. I wasted […]  Chenyang, China Entries in pdf format from my travels in China when I was still emailing my Travel Journal. The Bridges of Dong County pdf Gaoding: Baiju Srikes Back pdf Zhaoxing: The VIP dinner pdf Miao villages: Basha and Xijiang pdf Tagong: A night with the nomads pdf […] pdf version of this post with pictures Mengla was intended to be a just a brief stop over on the way to Laos I had rather low expectations after reading the description in the guidebook. The highlight is the road to the town about 50 km from the Chinese border with Laos. And the […] pdf version of this post with pictures Xishwangbanna is the region where China meets Southeast Asia. In the far south of Yunnan province the region hugs the Chinese border at the point where Laos and Burma meet. This area was long ruled by the Dai people, related to the Thais. A relation that is […] pdf version of this post with pictures As I prepare to leave Yuanyang behind me I must say I haven’t been disappointed. It was a great place to start out my trip. It was my first destination, the previous places really not being more of transit points. It’s been a little over a week […] pdf version of this post with pictures With the onset of the Chinese New Year I was planning on moving on from Yuanyang especially after my hotel owner informed me that he was shutting down for the Holiday and I had to leave. However, the bus to the next town I was heading was […] pdf version of this post with pictures I was out on a morning walk with no particular destination in mind which I find tends to work best here in Yuanyang. If I try to find something in particular I often fail but when I’m not looking for anything I invariably find something. This morning […] pdf version of this post with pictures Sitting atop a ridge in the mountains of southern Yunnan province lies the hill top town of Yuanyang. It’s about a seven hour bus ride south towards the Lao border from the provincial capital of Kunming, but it couldn’t be further from the metropolis of shinny new […] 2/5/2007 to 2/10/2007 | China pdf version with pictures It’s amazing how fast things are changing in China. Nowhere was I struck by the truth of that statement more than on my return to Guangzhou nearly eight years after I first visited the city. I recall writing the first time I was in Guangzhou that I couldn’t believe a […] | |||
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