Month: April 2010

We left Chengdu and the fantastic Sim’s Cozy hostel and took the sleeper train to Guilin. The train was due to depart at 4.26 but got delayed three times until it finally left at 5.10pm. The train seemed almost empty- there weren’t many people in hard sleeper and one carriage was almost empty. The hot…

Back in Chengdu after our visit the the Roof of the World, Lhasa Tibet. We went out to Le Shan and saw the Giant Buddha. It is carved into the rock face facing the river and it is over 70m tall. It took about 2 and a half hours by private car to get there,…

The guide met us in the morning and took us to Norbulingka, the Summer Palace of the Dalai Lama. We saw the bedroom, study and temple of the Dalai Lama. On the walls were paintings explaining the life of all the Dalai Lamas and the history of the Tibetan people- they believe that Tibetans came…

In the morning I went up to the roof of the hostel and had a great view of the Potala Palace. A different guide met us as the first guide was sick. We walked to Potala Palace – red and white buildings where the Dalai Lamas lived, studied and are entombed in giant golden stupas.…

After an early dinner at the hostel of garlic tofu and shredded potato with rice we were taken to the train station to await our T22 sleeper train to Lhasa. When we got into our soft sleeper cabin in car 6, 2 chinese people were already in there and had their luggage everywhere. Once they…

This morning we had our last shower for a few days – we won’t get to wash on the train to Lhasa. We took the hostel tour to the Panda Breeding Centre and visited the Giant Pandas and the Lesser (Red) Pandas. The tour was good value- 80Yuan for guide, private car, entry ticket (itself…

Rest day. Had lunch at the Xi’an hostel then caught the cheap 1 yuan 603 public bus to the station for our overnight train to Chengdu. It was scheduled to leave at 2.04, got delayed to 2.45, then to 3.10. The crowds were getting upset and I don’t think the Chinese are very patient people…

We arrived on time at 8.25am and even had an English speaking staff member come around with 10 minutes to go to tell us to get our luggage ready. We came out of the station and there was a large crowd of waiting people. We found our hostel waiting point and got a lift to…

Our last day in Bejing. After our afternoon yesterday we were a little tired of the place- the spitting, the dirt, the crowds and the hassling people. Mao’s Mausoleum had a line of tour groups doubled around it so we didn’t worry about visiting it. We walked from our hostel to the Temple of Heaven.…

Yesterday we unfortunately got duped into the Beijing tea scam (you can check a search engine for more info, or simply read on). We had spent the afternoon walking around the forbidden city and Jingshan park on the hill behind. Upon our return to Tiananmen square, we were greeted in English by a young Chinese…