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Jane's Travels
Ok, so i have found it a bit tricky to write to this blog while in China so I will sum it all up in a nutshell as I am now at Hong Kong airport waiting to fly to Tokyo.
Here goes...
Beijing was cool and the temples were interesting. We met our intrepid group there who we travelled with for the 21 day trip.
Xian was our next stop. We saw the terracotta warriors and had hot pot in the muslim quarter. I think i have already mentioned that!
From Xian we got another overnight train (which was superb compared to our cruddy trains) to Xiahe which is in the Tibetan grasslands and was once part of tibet. It felt so different to the rest of china as it has retained so many tibetan traditions-the music, the food (yak, yak and more yak!) and the monks, thought the drive motorbikes and use mobiles!! We visited a tibetan village there and had lunch with a family. I have to say all the yak produce made me almost gag!!
Ok, i'm gonna stop there as i have to go grab my flight. Will edit this and update it in tokyo.
bye for now.
Jane
xx
Ok, so I'm back. I am now in Tokyo (you will have to read the tokyo enrty to find out about that!) and am updating this as promised. Our flight to japan was actually delayed so i nipped back to the internet at the airport and tried to update this then. Unfortunately it didn't save so i made my way back towards the gate only to see the final call message next to my flight. I pegged it (and wheezed most of the way in my state of great fitness) and was literally the last one on. Karen had boarded, Heidi was waiting and they were about to sent a hostess to find ne and then take karen and our luggage off thje plane. Ooops! That will teach me to be greedy and over use free internet availability!
Anyhoo, back to China. Where was i...oh, that's right, gagging over yak food in Xiahe. Right, so from there we went on to Langmusi, another small Tibetan town. The scenery was lovely as the town is at 3300m altitude. We went for a hike in the surrounding countryside and I almost died whilst puffing my way up to 3800m. The views over the hills and valleys made it worthwhile though. We also went to a little cafe in town for the legendary McYak burgers. Most of the group tucked in and one guy, Pete went for the Mega McYak burger. It was the size of a frisbee and he nearly beat it but it was just too big a challenge for him! I opted for the veggie burger as i had lied about being a veggie from the start of the trip to get me out of having to eat weird or nasty meat.
From Langmusi we made our way to a tibetan village for the night. En route we stopped at a school which was an eye opener. The kids had old wooden desks, barely anything on the walls and they were grubby to the core. We had a kick about on the playground with them before we left which was fun.
The tibetan homestay was quite an experience. The house was on two levels and our group took up a whole level. We watched the yak and pigs roam the village dirt tracks before the houses opened the gates and the animals wandered in for the night. We had a (yak, just for a change!) dinner cooked for us and i had a veggie version. we then all crashed on the floor like a giant sleepover. Most of us tried to avoid using the loo as it was an outside squat that was so shallow the smell overtook you and you could see the bugs squrming around in the rotting filth beneath you! Too much information about squats?!!
We left the home the next day and then went on to two more tibetan towns before making our way back into proper china in Chengdu. We saw the pandas at a sanctuary there-interesting animals but lazy as me.
Next we flew to Guilin where we spent a night in a wonderfully rustic guesthouse with huge limestome karsts and rainforest all around us.
Then we had our last 2 nights in Yangshou where we took a boat down the river Li to a riverside restaurant in a Ming dynasty house and had a dinner with views to die for.
It was then an overnight train and lots of walking to get over the border tyo Hong Kong. We had one night there with the group. We went for a final meal and gave our tour leader, Ailsa, a bracelet to say thanks and a cake. The cake wasnt for eating though. Oh no, it was for her to shove her face into-something she had expressed a deep desire to do while on the trip so we madeher dream come true. It was a hilarios moment, especially as it was in the middle of the restaurant!
We said our goodbyes to the group the next day and moved from our hotel to our hostel. I was highly amused by the fact that it was located on Man Fuk road-seriously! It was then a mad dash couple of days to do the markets, the waterfront and skyscraper light show and Victoria Peak. We did it all and had a great time.
Well, that's it for China. Sorry, it was in a rather large nutshell! Big clap on the back for anyone who has slogged their way though all of this entry in one go!
I'll shut up now.
Go to China if you haven't been-it was superb.
Jane
xx
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