After China and The Wedding

After Kunming, we headed to Sydney, stopping in HongKong for transit. The stop in HongKong was mainly to pick up working suits and shirts Ross had tailored for work. We were initially quite worried on how they would turn out. Images of "post-it-notes" at the tailor's keep recurring to us, notes that said "Get it right this time!". The suits, one dark blue and the other dark grey, turned out to be beautiful! Very good fit and good workmanship.

We also managed to settle some bank issues and had one last meal at Fat Angelos (our favourite restaurant in HongKong). We had our favourite lasagna and angel hair pasta followed by tortoni. Simply delicious! We felt like we haven't had a good meal for ages and simply starving for good food. We also changed our flight to an early one to surprise Ross's parents.

It was a good flight. Ross in business (paid by work) and me in economy. But I had the full aisle seats to myself so I could stretch out to sleep if I wanted. In Sydney, we ran into some problems with the customs, mainly my fault as I neglected to declare some chocolates and packaged food. I will have to learn to be more careful next time.

The stay in Sydney was great and relaxing... Val and Brian were great and took wonderful care of us. We met up with Nanny who looked wonderful and still as sharp as ever. We also managed to meet Wilma, Jeff, Ethel and Clare on separate occasions. Such wonderful people and all of them showed us such love, concern and excitement for our wedding plans. We also met with lawyers for my Australian immigration.

Due to wedding plans and fittings, I left for Singapore as scheduled on 27th June. The flight to Singapore actually kick starts our round-the-world tickets.

Once in Singapore, I was due for a fitting for my wedding and evening gowns on 28th. Friday, 30th was food tasting. Ross stayed back in Sydney and joined me only on friday night, 30th, missing the food tasting. But my family and EngEng were there and provided feedback.

Singapore has progressively been a stressful and hectic place for me. Communications with family members always turned out to be a stressful affair especially when my parents have their own opinion about how things should be done and can't explain to me the rationale of doing it. Communication between me and my parents, as I have admitted for a long time, is a big problem. Somehow, we all managed to get through it and had a fantastic time on the actual day.

We stayed in Elizabeth hotel before Ross's parents came. When they arrived on 8th July, we stayed in Great World City Serviced Apartments, 32nd floor, in a 4 bedroom apartment. The top floor was on the 33rd floor and the penthouse. I was quite confused as I thought we booked the penthouse. Anyway, it was huge and lovely and had plenty of space for everyone. It was good to have everyone under the roof, Ross's parents, Stewart and family, and Ross and myself. The kids are so much fun to have around.

Days pending to the wedding was a mad rush. Again, I had schedules and todos planned back to back. So many things and ends to tie up and so little time. How can a bride look good with so much stress and so little sleep? But at least my problems are halved with Hannah (my wedding planner) taking care of the actual day.

One of the things I had to get done was to fix up my red cheongsum. I had a red cheongsum which I planned to wear for the tea ceremony. Red china silk with double happiness prints. I tailored it in HongKong against EngEng's advice that a red cheongsum looks too waitressy. I wanted a red cheongsum badly. When it was done, I regretted it immediately as it did look waitressy and I had no idea how to make it look otherwise. So I brought it to Singapore anyway. At the trial makeup session I had, I brought the red cheongsum and asked my makeup-artist whether makeup will help to lighten the waitressy impression. He said I needed to get the gown altered and I was in total despair because I didn't know anyone. Luckily Hannah passed me a contact that I visited immediately and they were confident they could improve the gown. So in the end, the gown was salvaged and I am happy that I wore it on the tea ceremony as well as occasions to come.

Lijiang 4th Day

Woke up in time for breakfast. I think if they didn't serve breakfast, we would have slept in bed longer. The beds are so comfortable here. I guess everything's relative but the rooms in GuanFang are pretty good.

We wanted to see 2 places today, Black Dragon Pool Park and BaiSha (village for minorities). We headed for Black Dragon Pool Park first. It was bigger than we expected and tickets cost a dear 60Y each. Pretty much an artificial garden with a huge lake. There was a painter inside featuring paintings with Dragons and landscape. Ross rather liked the landscape paintings. We stayed and talked to the painter for a while. He was very enthusiastic about his work and said that he has customers all over the world. He first guessed that I am Japanese and Ross Australian. Well, at least he got one right. But I was impressed that he knew where Singapore was anyway. Most people here first guess that I'm local, I would reply that I'm Singaporean. I'm usually sceptical that they know whether that means within China or overseas. We left the place intending to come back later. We walked around the park and even somehow ended outside the park. It started raining at this point. But we have really been very lucky with the weather. The times when we did our nature treking, JiuZhaiGou and Tiger Leaping Gorge, it was supposed to be raining but we had pretty fine weather throughout.

We came back into the park (showed our tickets and didn't have to pay again). We bought a landscape painting from him (RMB390).

We headed to the Ancient Town next for some lunch. We went back to Sakura and got a pizza and a pasta. It turned out to be fantastic. I'm really grateful we managed to find some decent food around here, and dreading our stop in Kunming next. The outstanding problem with food here is that there seems to be only one chef in the kitchen. If both of us did not share food, one will be eating after the other has finished.

It started pouring again when we left the cafe. We wanted to head to Looking at the Past Pavilion ( wang4gu3lou2) cos we saw some landscape paintings there we might want to buy. We had to walk up slopes and wet slippery steps to get there. After climbing up numerous stairs to get there, we decided we much prefered the painting we got in the morning, which turned out to be a blessing we got it!

Pending the bad weather, we headed back to the hotel.

Spent some time lazing in the hotel, using the internet, catching up emails and so on. We left the hotel for dinner at Old Town. We walked up some distance away from the crowd to make some calls, the place we made the calls happened to be a tea shop. While Ross was on the phone, I chatted with the owner. He asked where we were from. I was impressed that he knew Singapore was another country. I asked him about some of the tea he has. He was surprised that I knew how to read chinese characters (well, he doesn't know that much about Singapore then). I felt he was a very honest guy. The people in Lijiang seems to be nice and honest in general. I saw some corns hanging on his door as I have seen in other shops and asked him the significance. He said that it meant something like hoarding wealth. We bought some tea from him before we left the shop.

Since it was getting late, we headed for dinner back in Blue Papaya (even though we were worried they might pee in our food), trusting that we would get good food. We also got a chocolate cake for dessert and it tasted just as good as we remembered

Lijiang 3rd Day

Went to bed early last night but it wasn't easy getting to sleep. Ross was feeling sore on his back and legs, tossing and turning. I was feeling the effects of sunburn. Besides these, both of us were actually a bit hungry, since we didn't have much dinner at Jane's. We could also hear the wind and rain last night.

There was a huge group that went out early in the morning and caused quite a bit of commotion which we can hear from the room. Apparently, a bit of the road was blocked off during the rain last night. We had seen loose rocks along the slope and I suppose they were washed to the roads creating road blocks.

I had Shanghai porridge for breakfast (actually tasted pretty good) while Ross had a bar of chocolate. After which, we packed our bags and checked out. We informed the guy who was helping us to check out that we needed transportation out to Qiaotou. He said that roads were blocked last night and there might be a short stretch that we would have to walk. We waited with our luggage at the entrance. Saw quite a few groups coming down from their treks down to Tina's. We also learnt that usually, there's a 11am bus and 11:30am bus that brings people to Qiaotou. Alternatively, we could charter the GuestHouse's minibus to Qiaotou. Finally, we saw some mini vans coming through. Two stopped by Tina's and brought some guests further on the Tiger Gorge, against the direction we intended to travel. We were exasperated as we thought the guy at the guesthouse were helping us to arrange transportation and realised that he hadn't made the arrangements. A mini van came by at around 11am and we learnt that they were heading in the same direction and hopped in. By a stroke of luck, we realised that the couple on board was heading to Lijiang too. They asked whether we would like to share in to charter a mini-van to Lijiang too. We readily agreed. At Qiaotou, we stopped shortly at Jane's (where their luggage was deposited) and went a short distance before we switched mini buses to Lijiang. Another 2 hours later, we reached Lijiang. The driver intended to drop us off first. But the driver gave us problems cause he didn't know where our hotel was and kept complaining that it was too far, too far. We directed him to the hotel and thanked the couple for their trouble. I thought the couple was really loving and nice friendly people.

We had not much problems checking in. But this time, the unit we were staying in was quite far away from the reception where breakfast is served too. After retrieving our deposited luggage, we took the buggie to the room. Soon after we sorted some things out, checking the internet and so on, we headed for town for some food. We were pretty eager to have some good food. We also wanted to try out Shima and Erwin's recommendation on good italian food at Blue Papaya's. We finally found the place after searching for a while in the labyrinth, it's really quite a maze especially for me. The food turned out to be fantastically good. Very good italian food that tasted simply heavenly after the days of food deprivation.

We visited Mu's Temple which was closed most of the time when we came the last few times. It was quite nice and a huge place. Ross was keen for a massage after the treking in Tiger Gorge. So we went back to Blue Papaya and fixed an appointment for 8pm. We didn't do much, just walked around in the Old Town. It felt more vibrant and alive than the last time, I guess it could be because it's sunday. Lots of ladies in traditional gear and lots of horses dressed up for rides.

We went back to Blue Papaya at 7:20pm for dessert and drinks. Ross ordered a chocolate cake that turned out to be amazingly good and very fresh. We idled at the cafe for our 8pm appointment. At 7:50pm, there was no sight of our masseurs, not at 8pm, not even at 8:5pm, at which point we gave up and said we were leaving. Disappointing but it's a great place for food though.

We wandered around the town some more. I was hoping to grab some light food before heading back to the hotel. We went into a huge (longgish rather) cafe called Sakura. Sakura's also in Lonely Planet, apparently a local married a Korean and this cafe has a very wide variety of food. I ordered a japanese dish, pork cutlet with rice, and Ross ordered freshly cut mangoes. The cafe had a pub-ish environment. Dark, noisy, lots of people around having drinks, smoking. The 9pm soccer match between Japan and Croatia was starting very soon. My japanese cutlet turned out to be a huge serving and delicious. Ross's mango serving was huge too (would have been at least 2 huge mangoes there). We shared in the food and managed to finish them. We even enjoyed watching soccer together. First soccer match I'm watching for this World Cup, and the match was pretty exciting. Later today, Australia was supposed to play against Brazil.

We headed back to the hotel 30mins into the game and continued watching the game back in the hotel.

When we took a cab from Old Town to the hotel, the taxi driver stared so openly at Ross that it was embarressingly funny for me to watch. He made Ross so conscious that he tried to turn away his head to look out the window. The taxi driver kept asking lots of questions, where we were from, how much we earn and so on.

Tiger Leaping Gorge Day 2

Woke up at 7.30am today. Since I went to bed very early last night, I was mentally and physically (hopefully) psychiced up for the trip. In fact me and Ross had an argument yesterday where he was really worried that I won't be able to do the 22km from Tina's to Qiaotou. Personally, since I didn't know how tough the dirt tracks (cmountain trail) was, I can't say I was totally confident that I could do it. We asked Tina for some advice on how to do the trail, to walk from Tina's to Qiaotou or take a cab to Qiaotou (how most people would start the trail). She advised that it'll be easier to start from her Guest House. It will be tough for the first hour but will have relatively less up slopes than down slopes compared to coming from the other direction.

We had breakfast and set out slightly after 8:30am. We were warned that the walk would take 10 to 12 hours. The weather was cool when we started out. The scenery was gorgeous as we expected. The first hour up slope was really tough. We were also not that sure which tracks to go half the time. But in the end, we managed to get on the right tracks without making too many mistakes. We tried to follow yellow or red arrows marked on rocks. As compared to yesterday's tracks, we weren't that close to the water (upper track is generally 500-2000 metres above the river), but most times, we could still hear the distant rush of the currents and see the river at times from a huge distance. Once or twice we also heard the distant blast of the rocks (sounds like thunder), we only learnt it was blasting when we asked the workers at Sean's. We drank lots of water along the way, with Ross carrying the day pack most of the times and me carrying on some flat grounds. Along the way, we also saw lots of waterfalls, but most weren't huge waterfalls but the water was very clear and cooling.

Guest houses were appropriately peppered along the way. Usually we will reach a tea house or guest house after walking for 2 hours or so. Our first stop was Tea House. At the 2nd stop, Halfway House, we had a banana chocolate pancake, which Ross felt was very good, I didn't think it had enough chocolate on it, but I'm someone who when eating Nutella with bread, has more Nutella in it than the bread. We had problems going through the entrance because a horse was packed outside. The horse was placed in such a way that we could only enter the House within kicking distance of his hind hoofs. I was really terrified going past him and could imagine him kicking my face as I ran past. We saw a huge group of trekers at Halfway House. A group of 10 to 15, with equally as many young people as old people. I'm really impressed with the elderly folks who try this treks. Our third stop was Naxi Guest House where I had a bowl of noodles. Most of the people here were really nice, helpful and friendly.

The weather was pretty good most of the time. Blazing bright sunlight with cool breeze along the way. Towards the end for around 30 mins or so, we had some rain. It felt really cool whenever we were in the shade, especially under huge rock shelters. The rain drops felt really cold too. After the first hour (of tough upslope), we had 2.5 hours to 3 hours of mostly flat ground, and then another tough upslope of 1.5 hours before 2.5 hours of downslope consisting of a spot called 28 bends (in actual fact more bends than that, downslope). The last stage of downslope wasn't as easy as it sounds though. The trek was full was loose rocks and dry soil, getting a good foot grip was difficult. We met with lots of horses on the way (some people did the track by riding) I was really frantic that I would get kicked by the horses but Ross was there to calm me down. Ross had coke at most of the stops (they don't have Coke Light around here) and he was getting an overdose of it. The food hasn't been terrific in Tiger Gorge too, neither the Chinese or Western. It all tasted mostly excessively salty.

Our last stop along the treks at Qiaotou was Jane's Guesthouse, that was at 5:30pm. We were hoping there was internet there. When Jane saw Ross, she consciously tidied her hair. The funny thing was we spent at least 30 mins there and "Jane" was chatting a lot with us, but when we left, I told Ross that "Jane" was a man. Ross was so surprised, he never thought that could be the case. "Jane" had curly shoulder length hair, a girly voice and feminine movements. For me, what gave it away was his moustache stubs.

Ross had a really oily meat spaghetti while I waited for at least 20 mins for my pumpkin cakes (oily too). The elderly couple there were really chatty and interested in where I was from. Since internet was not available at Jane's, we went elsewhere for internet. The internet service was really slow and unstable. When we were ready to return to Tina's, we asked around for transportation, a lady at a Guesthouse said the best option is to book a car. She was nice enough to call up for us but could not find one. I borrowed her phone to call Tina's to dispatch transportation to fetch us. We wanted to pay the lady 10Y for the use of her phone but she rejected it. We had to wait for around half an hour before our chartered mini van arrived. When the mini van passed by Jane's, "she" was eating a nectarine outside her Guesthouse. I took the chance to confirm with the driver "her" sex and confirmed that Ross was wrong.

It has been a tough but good walk. We enjoyed it tremendously to be treking amongst such beautiful natural surroundings. By the end of the day, Ross's legs are sore, for me, it's my bum that's feeling sore.

Tiger Leaping Gorge

Woke up early in the morning to checkout of the hotel. We also needed to confirm that we had a hotel booking when we came back, place our luggage in the hotel and so on. It took longger than we expected and we narrowly missed our 8:30am bus to Qiaotou. Aboard the mini bus packed with 16 people, we had an interesting group. Majority of Mainland chinese, 5 french, one Australian and one Singaporean CHinese. Two of the mainland chinese spoke fluent english and translated for the french guys, even though the french spoke very good mandarin too. The lady driver was very friendly and kind. Along the way, she stopped at the first bend of the Yangtze River for us to take pictures. She was also busy enquiring about any bus services needed from Qiaotou. She arranged for one group of 7 to be dropped off at the Qiaotou hike starting trail and another group (us included) to be dropped off at the destinations we wanted. The destination me and Ross wanted to go was further, Sean's Guesthouse was right next to Walnut Garden, near the end of the trail, so we were the last ones to be dropped off. The driver who took us was again very kind. He stopped at the Tiger Gorge Upper Rapids for us to take pictures. He actually recommended for us to stay at Tina's. We didn't mind checking out Tina's rooms and found out Tina has rooms with bathrooms attached and everything looks clean and new. We therefore decided on Tina's instead.

We had lunch at Tina's, the cousine was mainly chinese. The surroundings were lovely at the hotel too. We ate outside where we faced the hills and gorges. In the midst of food, a group who had just in treking came in. Amongst them, was a guy who was carried in. We learnt that he was suffering from heat exhaustion.

There was a guide who tried to chat up with us. We hired her to bring us to Middle Tiger Gorge Rapids (supposedly the most significant and grand rapids of all). The view was breath-taking. It was simple lovely, we loved it even more than the JiuZhaiGou park. But the walks were more steep and in most cases, dangerous. A small slip could send you to the Gorges (sheer drop of 50-100 metres to the rocks). She showed us the spot where Tiger Leaping Gorge got its name from. It was high tide today, at middle level rapids, at the scenic spot, it was awe-inspiring to see the current rushing at you and see and hear it bashing against the rocks. We wanted to walk to Walnut Gardens and had 2 alternatives, one is to take the Sky stairs or take "A glipse of skylight" trail. Both were not described in huge detail on the book. We were terribly thankful that we got a guide cause most of the treks were not marked. She seemed very honest and friendly and told me lots about herself. She would also warn us at areas that were slippery and tell us about the history about the place. She even volunteered to carry Ross's backpack. She also took care when Ross was more apprehensive at areas where the trek was terribly close to the Gorge and had no hand support (Ross has fear of heights). The sky Stairs are basically stairs hanging by ropes to the climb to the top. It was about 20m to the top. The glipse of Sky is tricky in the sense that at some areas it is very close to the cliff, terribly narrow, low hanging, or simply that the ground didn't seem solid at all. That was the toughest bit for Ross. My toughest bit is always the steep upwards slope, even though by the time we reached the Middle Gorge Rapids (all the way downhill), my legs were feeling weak. All I can say is that it was a good tough walk and it won't be any easier tomorrow as we plan to do a full day trip.

We reached Sean's house at about 5:45pm. We had walked 3 hours. Along the way, the guide was telling me lots of gossip about Sean. The guide was really friendly and we chatted quite a lot on the way. She spoke good mandarin but no english. Me and Ross thought she looked really young (in her early twenties maybe) and when I asked, she told me outright she was 32, but in fact born one year earlier than me. She also has 2 kids, one boy and one gal. Apparently he's not very popular among the locals and very eccentric. At Sean's, we explained that we will not be taking the room we reserved, but for good will, we paid for the room anyway (RMB40). We had a good cold drink and wanted to use the internet or call Britain. We were told calls can only be made as far as Lijiang, or we had to fall back on internet. The lady we asked happened to be Sean's daughter and she said we had to wait for her dad. While waiting, we found out that the Walnut Garden only had a few walnut trees so it wasn't worth much of a look. We decided to order dinner but by the time we finished dinner, 6:30pm, Sean was still not ready for us to use the internet. In the end, we left without using, worried that we will be caught out without daylight.

We then walked half an hour by road track to Tina's. It was a relatively easy walk.

Lijiang Day 2

We woke up for the Day trip in Lijiang. It was supposed to bring us to YuLongXueShan (Jade Dragon Snow Mountain), Dry Sea Meadow (Gan1Hai3Zi) , Glacier and a visit to Naxi Minorities.

We stopped first at the Dry Sea Meadow, it was a patch of flat land with grass, trees and wild flowers. The flat green land was nice against Snow capped mountains, but really nothing to brag about. A short distance from there, we reached the center that has a cable car which brings us up to the Glacier, 4,680m above. We had to wait a while before our group number was called. When it was our turn, we took a shuttle bus to the cable station. It was a long queue at the cable station. We had to wait around 30minutes. The center also provided rental of warm clothings and purchase of oxygen cans. We didn't get any as we brought our own clothings and didn't think we will really need the oxygen cans. The cable took 12minutes or so to bring us 4506m. The weather has turned significantly colder, we wore all our warm clothings. It was also blowing cold wind. The walway is very close to the glacier - although not particularly impressed compared to some Ross had seen in South America. It was also very foggy at the top. We climbed all the way to 4,680m, panting along the way, and taking frequent breaks.

Next, they took us to lunch. But it was a long time before everyone gathered in the bus as the queues were long coming down at the cable station. We had lunch near Cloud Fir Meadow (Yun2Shan1Ping). There was a lovely clear turquiose blue lake near the lunch restaurant. Further up, there were also plains and rapids where the locals were offering tourists Yak rides and photos. The plains and rapids looked simply lovely and out o the world! If I understood correctly, these were artificially made in the replica of a spot near Tiger Leaping Gorge. There, we bumped into Shima and Erwin again. We found out they had hired a cab to take them around and they just finished a horse ride up Cloud Fir Meadow.

We visited the Miniorities Tribal village next. It was a nice village where we got to know more about the different tribes in Lijiang, collectively known as Naxi people. Near the end of the visit, there was a short naxi music and dance performance. On the way walking out, we saw Salmon ponds. There were lots of big, fat, pale pink salmon fishes inside!

The tour bus dropped us off at the hotel. It was around 6:30pm. In the hotel, we unloaded some stuff and used our Lonely Planet to plan for our next trip to Tiger Leaping Gorge. We wanted to book accomodation and find out about transportation from Lijiang to Tiger Leaping Gorge. We found out that Sean's Guesthouse has a website and thought it might be good place to stay which has internet.

We called to book up the GuestHouse and realised the rate was quite cheap, just that it didn't have a private bathroom. Next was the arrangement of transportation to Tiger Leaping Gorge or QiaoTou, the beginning of the walking trail.

Lonely Planet said that there were as many as 10 buses going to Qiaotou in a day. We asked at the hotel but did not manage to get any information. The taxi driver was also not that sure, but brought us to a bus station that has only one bus a day to Qiaotou. We thought it was possibly the wrong bus station and took more cabs to go to another bus station. It was terribly frustrating, no one had a clear idea. In the end, we went back to buy the only bus we know goes to Qiaotou for 8:30am bus.

With that settled, we headed for dinner in town. After dinner, we went to a supermarket to stock up for the journey and happened to bump into Shima and Erwin again at the supermarket. We headed back together to the Hotel. Me and Ross got to learn that the couple was having their last holiday in China before being posted to Brazil. After 2 days in Lijiang Ancient Town, they would head to LIjiang Banyan Tree, 4 hours away in a 4- wheeldrive. I feel quite sad that friends (distant though it may be) are leaving the area and we might not be meeting them again.

Heading back in the room, we packed our things into a backpack so that we needed only to carry a backpack and day pack between the 2 of us. It had been a terribly busy day.

Lijiang

Today, we leave Kunming and head for LiJiang. Had breakfast in New Era hotel before heading off, the spread at breakfast was pretty good.

The flight to Lijiang was also quite smooth. At the Lijiang airport, while waiting for our luggage to appear at the belt, a chinese looking lady came up to Ross and asked "Are you Stewart's brother?". We realised she was Shima, and with her husband, Erwin, they were holidaying for a week, spending 2 days in Lijiang and another few days in an area 4 hours from Lijiang, in the direction of Tibet. Such a coincidence! We also found out that we were staying in the same hotel. Their luggage came first and they departed soon after.

The weather in Lijiang was blazing warm. Our cab driver was really slow. He also had a very strong smoker's breath. He was very interested in what we were doing and how long we will be in LiJiang. Apparently, he does tour trips too, we later found out most taxi drivers in Lijiang are providing such services. When we reached nearer town, we were caught in a predicament. There were actually two branches of our hotels and we didn't really know which one, the Hotel or Garden Villa. We booked with the hotel but had a Garden Villa room.

We tried the Hotel, which was nearer to the Ancient Town. It turned out to be the wrong one and we headed next to Garden Villa. At the lobby of Garden Villa reception, it was a frenzy of activity. They had our booking and managed to issue us a room pretty soon.

Our luggage was loaded onto a buggie, and we were driven a short distance to a building where our "villa" was (or just a 2-storey building with around 20 rooms). The cabbie drove us up to the driveway and said, "there you are", with seemingly no intention to bring our luggage in. I asked, "You are going to bring our luggage in right?". And he humbly got off the buggie and helped us with our back packs. Our hotel card said 6117 which was on the 2nd floor. I opened the door and was surprised to see 2 men (with shoes on) sleeping on the twin beds. They were equally surprised to see us and one asked "what's up?". We quickly came out of the room and waited at the 2nd floor seating area while our cabbie, bellboy sorted things out. We didn't see any of their luggage in the room and thought it was surprising that they didn't make that much of a fuss that we actually barged into the room. From where we were sitting, I could hear the maids calling reception and getting very flustered. Calls came to and fro. It was a while before we were told that the previous room 6117 was already taken up and they will issue us another room. They said a room downstairs, 6104, was available. Then left our luggage outside 6104 and disappeared without opening the door for us. I could again hear more calls being made and passed to and fro. They told us another room, 6109 was for our use. We checked out the room and was actually quite satisfied with it. This is a five star hotel. The room and bathroom is very spacious. There was also a computer in the room with fast internet connection.

We changed for lighter clothings and went out for a walk around the ancient town but not without complaining to the reception first. The reception was hopeless with english. I had to do all the translation. In all our experiences, we never expected such treatment from five-star hotels. We asked to speak to the manager, when Ross spoke to him, he could only agree and say sorry without offering anything else. We were wondering whether he understood, he said he did but offered nothing else. I think he did, just that he didn't trust himself to speak english. At one point, they offered a fruit basket. But in actual fact, I noticed there was already one in the room. In the end, we got for our 4 days special rate to be broken up into 2 days so that we can do Tiger Gorge in between. We had previously checked with the reception but they said the rate could only be enjoyed with a 4 day continuous stay. The manager readily agreed to our demands.

The weather had turned significantly cooler. I went back to get warmer clothings. It even drizzled on the way to the Ancient Town. The Ancient Town's pretty impressive. Feeling braver since my stomach upsets in Tibet, I tried some local snacks which turned out pretty tasty. The Ancient Town is basically a beautiful old town that basically offers mainly shopping and food.

We booked a day trip going to yu4long2xue3shan1 (Jade Dragon Snow Mountain) the next day. They can even pick us up at our hotel at 9:30am.

Kunming Day 2

We woke up just in time for breakfast at 10am. We planned to have a lazy day today but didn't really turn out that way.

We took a cab to XiShan, 15km from Kunming, at Huating Temple. We walked 5 to 6km up-slope, visited temples along the the way. There wasn't anything really impressive. We walked all the way to Nie Er tomb and had a chairlift to the Dragon Gate. We were thankful we got the chairlift, it wasn't terribly safe but it offered us a clear view of the city and rest from the walking.

At the top of Dragon Gate, we didn't really manage to see anything really interesting. It was narrow steep stairways, sculptures, pavilions and grottoes.

For dinner, we went to City Cafe where they were reputed to serve good western and chinese food. We had chinese food there, beef, tofu and spinach. The dishes turned out a bit too spicy for Ross though.

We also walked to Camellia Hotel to check out the accomodations there and booked a night's stay for 21st June. We walked all the way back to the hotel after that. All in all, both of us had a very long walk for the day.

To Kunming

Today, we head to Kunming. As usual, our flights were around 12pm, this time, it was 10:55am. Rather good planning by Ross since we get out of the room around checkout time and it's not too early to wake up. I had a bannana chocolate pancake for breakfast. Their pancakes are like crepes and are the best I have tasted on the trip so far, much better than the ones in Tibet. The chocolate toppings are more generous than in Tibet (non-existent).

It was a short ride to the airport. We had some problems with our air tickets and the officer said we probably bought our tickets too early (18th May). He had problems issuing boarding passes for us, his theory was that there might have been price adjustments due to rising fuel costs. I was told to go to the China Airlines counter to double check but the officer said the tickets were just fine. In the end, the first officer closed his counter and walked over to check it out himself. We managed to get the tickets without further hassle and without paying extra.

Reached Kunming in an slightly over an hour. Our bags appeared on the belt pretty swiftly, surprisingly (touch wood), the luggage service is so far so good at most China airports, much faster than HongKong.

Went to the taxi stand where there was virtually no queue. It's irritating at times when multiple officers are placed at the taxi queue but are not doing their job. But I guess we see that a lot in the service industry in China, lots of people just sitting around and not bothering with the customer at all. They even seem offended at times when you disrupt their conversation to make enquires.

Got a cab to New Era hotel which we booked from ctrip website. The taxi fare's very cheap, around 40Y. The hotel's right in the heart of the city, lots of shopping malls, restaurants and supermarkets around it.

We walked to lunch which was quite a distance away. It's great to explore a new place by just walking. The weather in Kunming was quite pleasant for walking too, good breeze and not too warm. We reached Wei's Pizzeria, a place I thought would be good for Ross to get his pizza and for me to try their local speciality, qi4guo3ji1. My dish came pretty fast but I was deeply disappointed as it looked and tasted nothing as delicious as was described in Lonely Planet. I think it was pretty much quail's meat, lot of small chunks of meat, lots of bones and no trace of the gingko nuts.Ross's pizza was also very average, I think they left out the tomato paste in the pizza...

We then took a cab to Bamboo Temple, 12km away from Kunming. At arrival, it was actually a very simple temple, doesn't really look that ancient even though it was rebuilt in 15th century, restored in 1890. Everything looks pretty new. By this time, both of us were feeling very templed-out. We quickly made our way out and back to Kunming.

We explored the area around the hotel, the restaurants, high-rise buildings, tea houses and shopping malls. Kunming also seem very big on potted flowers. The place seems pretty safe, but there are quite a handful of beggers around. There are lots of begger children too. Some as young as 6 or so and others begging for school fees.

For dinner, I tried their Mengzi-over-the-bridge noodles. They had sets available for 10Y, 20Y, 40Y and 60Y. I tried the 20Y set and it came with again the qiguoji soup. I'm convinced that the qiguoji is actually not that impressive after all. In contrast, I miss Singapore's herbal chicken. The noodles were not bad. They served 6 small dishes of fresh components, raw meat and so on, where you pour them into a bowl of hot soup to let it cook. It wasn't too bad.

After which, we went into a cafe where they served western dessert. The waiter we had kind of insisted on Ross buying a beer can souvenior even when Ross said no quite a few times. He was so persistent that Ross was on the verge of swearing at him.

Ross had the Sacher Torte cake and I had the HaagenDazs icecream. The Sacher cake turned out to be really good. But I had lots of complaints about the ice-cream. We did our own double sundae creation. It was irritating that after I made my order of Swiss Almond Chocolate and Belgium Chocolate with diced almond toppings that the waiter came back to say Swiss Almond chocolate was not available and even suggested that I change it to Mango flavour. I told him thank you very much but we can decide which flavour we want. And then when I noticed that the toppings I ordered were not written down and asked about it, another waitress came along to say that no toppings were available.

In the end, for 76Y, we basically had 2 half-scopes of Cookies and Cream and supposedly Belgium choclate with some whipped cream and apples. When I next complained that the Belgium Chocolate did not taste like Belgium chocolate at all, the first waitress insisted it was "HaagenDazs Belgium Chocolate". When I insisted it was not, 2nd waitress came to explain that Belgium chocolate was the same as Chocolate. Which was ridiculous. It is so exasperating placing an order and not getting what you want and people insisting that you are wrong and throwing the HaagenDazs name around like they know better and you are just a country pumpkin who wouldn't know much about HaagenDazs. I took the chance to complain about the half-scopes we got too. They said that was how it was served in Kunming, exactly what the HaagenDazs posters depicted. I was so angry and exasperated!

When I got to the hotel room, I went to HaagenDazs website and sent in feedback for this particular outlet.

Back to Chengdu

Today we moved to Dragon Town Youth Hostel to stay. Had a lazy morning in YinHe Hotel and went into a cafe that was a China imitation of Starbucks. Each table had used coffee powder, we assume was to help snuff out cigarettes and take over the cigarette smell. We thought that was quite clever. When we were seated, the waitress came over and told us they were having a power failure. It was a warm day in Chengdu and we decided to come back later when the aircon was resumed.

We moved over to Dragon Town youth hostel at 1pm. We had a spacious clean double room with a huge balcony. It was a good chance to do our laundry too at a cheap rate. It was 10Y per bag.

Dragon Town Youth Hostel also had a pretty good pizza restaurant which we tried the last time. We had lunch there but the food wasn't really up to our expectation because we tried stuff other than pizzas. The service was also terribly slow.

We hanged up our washed clothes mainly in the balcony, bathroom and along the corridor outside the room. The Hostel was shaped like a "U", rather like the university hostel I used to live in. As you can imagine, Ross had managed to wash quite a few pieces of laundry.

We went out next for a rather long walk around in Chengdu. We managed to walk to a fish and flowers market. Besides fish, there were also lots of other pets, like tortoises, snakes, rabbits, kittens, puppies and so on. We also stopped by the cafe that was previously having a power failure for a milk shake but was rather disappointed by what they had to offer. From there, we walked the whole way back to the hostel.

We had dinner again in the hostel, this time we ordered pizza. And true to our expectations, the pizza turned out pretty good. The hostel had a full-sized labrador where a lot of travellers liked to play fetch with it. We sat in the balcony (corridor) outside our room located on the 3rd floor, read and watched them play ball with the dog. It was a quiet and uneventful evening.

Back go Chengdu

We took the 7am bus to chengdu. When we loaded the luggage onto the side of the bus, all the passengers on that side looked out and gawked at Ross. He happened to be the only white on board. Ross made a funny face back to them and they quickly turned away. The bus was a newer one compared to the one we took to Jiuzhaigou. We had more leg room too and there was aircon, no windows available, which means no one should be allowed to smoke. The bus was quite packed, there was only one empty seat. Again, the average age of the passengers was quite young. We sat on the second row, on the left side of the bus. Directly on our right, came this lady with bags and a crossbow. The crossbow looked very deadly even though it was not loaded. She was loaded with so many bags that some kind soul helped her carry some bags up, and she also needed help to load her big suitcase into the luggage section. We thought she was going to be lucky and have the seat next to her empty but some guy boarded at the last minute and took that seat. She had so many bags, below her seat, hanging in front of her seat and even below the seat next to her that the poor guy could only put his small bag on the aisle.

When the bus set off, we tried to get comfortable and take a snooze. To our annoyance, the lady with the crossbow kept making calls on her phone and spoke loudly in her Sichuan dialect for 2 whole hours, making calls after calls. She was talking so loudly that the whole bus could hear her and we were hear nothing else. And from what I can make out, it wasn't any calls that were urgent, which made it very irritable. At the end of the 2 hours, female passengers at the back were complaining loudly that she was making a lot of noise and couldn't she stop making calls? She finally took the hint and stopped for a while.

We stopped for a break and there were people who were extremely curious and kept staring at Ross. And being Ross's companion, I wasn't spared. When I was buying some fruits, a guy stood at elbow distance and stared openly, until I looked at him in the eye and asked 'what's up'? It's amazing how rude the people can be or how completely oblivious they can be of other people around them.

After nine and a half hours, we finally reached our destination. When we got off and unloaded the luggage the crossbow lady actually asked me to get Ross's help to help her unload her big luggage. I pretended not to hear but translated it to Ross anyway. We were both still very annoyed with her inconsideration and for her continuous loud phone calls, some especially loud ones towards the end of the journey too! Anyway, the gist is that we didn't stop to help her.

The last time Ross came to Chengdu, he visited this reconstructed area that was made to look like an ancient city. Ross thought I would like the area since they had multiple stalls selling local delights. We managed to find out from the hotel concierge where it was, it was known as Jing Li.

We had our taste of HaggenDaz ice-cream, something both of us have been looking forward to for sometime, and made our way to JingLi and had a lovely walk. JingLi also had many stalls with local delights which I got to sample.

It was quite funny that as we were leaving Jingli, someone tried to capture Ross on her camera. An older lady was hot at Ross's heels while a younger lady tried to capture both Ross and the elder in the same picture frame. Ross was aware of what they were trying to do and was determined to give them the slip. It was funny just watching them. China hasn't really gotten over the appearance of foreigners. Sometimes while walking on the streets, some stranger would exclaim very loudly "Wah! Foreigner!".

JiuZhaiGou Day 2

It's Kynan's 6th birthday today! We repeated what we did yesterday. Had breakfast, went to buy tickets for bus jouney back and proceeded to the park.

The left "Y" was very unexciting. Three quarters of which were Seasonal lakes, and this was not the right season to see any water. So all we saw were dry patches. At the very top, there was a Long Lake, we walked around 1km to see the adjoining lake before getting a bus down to the disection. When we hopped onto the green bus, after waiting for a full 20 minutes or so, the bus still refused to budge. The driver and guide commented that they need the commander's indication before they can move off. The bus was 95% full, with only 5 empty seats! The busload of people were extremely unhappy and complained loudly. Quite a big group got off and argued with the commander who was sitting under the shade, 20m away. After 2 or 3 more people got on the bus, we finally moved off. We felt it was an abuse of authority the commander exercised.


At the intersection, we got off and walked most of the trek of 14.5km. I felt it was a more enjoyable walk than yesterday. I guess it could be because the walk was more secluded and less people took up the challenge to do the walk.

When we left the park, we found an IP call place near the hotel and called up Kynan.

JiuZhaiGou

We slept in in the morning but managed to wake up in time for breakfast. The hotel seemed very quiet and unoccupied. At last night's dinner, there seemed to be only one table occupied in the whole restaurant. At breakfast today, it was slightly better, we saw another caucasian couple. There seemed to be a good spread but the bread was not fresh at all. I tried the rasin bread and it was very stale bread. But at least we could have fresh omelettes and for me, hot soya bean milk.

The first thing we did was to check out the return journey. We wanted to go back on the 11th and take it slow and easy here. After we verified that the only way to go back is the bus journey, we proceeded to walk to the bus station to buy tickets. The lady at the counter said we could only buy tickets one day in advance. So we proceeded to go to the National park next. We bought a 2 days pass. They took a digital picture of us both and printed it into our tickets. Quite cool, that could act as postcards too. We also need a map of the park and since none was available free, we had to buy one.

There were some fast food counters at the entrance. We gave them a pass. The entrance tickets were 220Y + 90Y (for the bus). We thought it wasn't cheap at all. We waited for the green bus to take us around the park. On the bus, there is a guide providing commentary of the park and each scenic spot. The park is shaped like a "Y". The first part is a 14.5km journey, proceeding upwards into each fork, the left fork is 18km, the right fork 18km. The bus we hopped on took us to the right fork. It turned out to be one with more scenic spots. We took the bus right up to the top, then took it a third down, and started walking. At the highest spot, the altitude was 3,000+m. The hike down was quite enjoyable, very walkable and it felt good to be so close to nature. But admittedly, I'm slightly disappointed. After seeing pictures of the park, I had very high expectations. The water was turquiose blue, clean and very clear. The park was peppered with waterfalls. You could hear the gushing and soothing sound of water. We walked until the fork merged and took a bus back down, intending to do the left fork the next day.

The weather in JiuzhaiGou's great though. Cool breeze with sunshine, when the weather forecast was supposed to be rainy.

Since we expect to finish exploring JiuZhaiGou by tomorrow, we needed to plan what to do. Either spend the extra day in JiuZhaiGou (as planned) or go back to Chengdu a day earlier. In the end, we voted for going back earlier. There's nothing really much to do here and food's very limited. In Chengdu, we can get most of the food we want and if we wanted to, we could do some day trips

Trip to JiuZhaiGou

The bus we were taking leaves at 8am for JiuzhaiGou. We boarded the bus at 7:20am.

Ross felt it was an awful journey but I thought it was easier than I expected. We were dreading the smoking, the food and toilet. The smoking wasn;t too bad, since only two people on the bus smoked, the driver and someone sitting far back. The food was terrible. We stopped at a "restaurant" that you had to pay 12Y to buy a food coupon, 2 meat and one veg, guaranting a full stomach. Even some mainland chinese turned their noses up at the food. Ross was surprised that I bought a coupon. Didn't eat that much, but had to eat something. Ross had an apple and some chocolates. The toilet wasn't too bad, but we had to pay for the use of the toilet, that frankly speaking, was heaps better than the ones in Tibet.

I felt we had a good mix of passengers too. On a bus of about 50, we had 7 to 8 foreigners and most of the passengers were quite young.

The drivers felt compelled to pass all other vehicles - no matter whether on the many blind corners on the windy road! I guess at least they had a second driver so that they could swap at various intervals.

We reached JiuZhaiGou at 6:30pm. Earlier than expected. The Sheraton hotel's pretty good. We had dinner in the hotel and went for a short walk in town, hunting for an IP phone to call overseas.

It seemed like a very safe town, the people seemed very friendly and the cabs didn't have wire cages for the drivers like in other Chinese cities.

Chengdu

Woke up early for the Panda visit. A mini van came to pick us up. We were the first pickup point. The next stop was the youth hostel where we picked up 4 more people. It took about an hour to reach the Panda Research and breeding center. Our driver cum guide led us to see different group of pandas. It was a good time of the day to visit because it was feeding time and 9 amish is the time of the day they are most alert. There were quite a few groups that came to visit too. Since breeding season was August, we couldn't really see baby pandas, but we did see some half-adults. It was a very nice park and we had very good walks within the park. They also had red pandas within the center.

After the panda center, we were driven back in the van. Since our next "transit" in Chengdu from JiuZhaiGou was going to be a short one, we were previously playing with the idea of staying in a standard room in the Youth Hostel. So we dropped off with the other guys from the hostel to check out the rooms. The deluxe room was really nice, spacious, clean and was furnished with very tasteful antique furniture. The standard room was great too with a balcony! Since we reckon that we just need a place to sleep before the next flight out, we got the standard room instead. We had lunch at the hostel. They had a very nice restaurant that served decent pizza and crepes.

The rest of the day was mainly rest and relax. We went to Carrefour to stock up some supplies for the bus journey. We had also been warned that food in JiuZhaiGou was unexciting. The other thing we had to get was reading materials for Ross to endure the long journey. We went to Chengdu's biggest bookstore, 5 stars hotels and all did not have any english papers or magazines for sale!

Dinner was at a western restaurant called Grandma's Deli and Kitchen that turned out to be pretty good. And surprise surprise, we managed to find South Morning CHina Post for sale at the restaurant!

Last Day in Tibet

Today's our last day in Tibet. It has been a very good trip and the scenery throughout has been spectacular. The whole experience was unique. To some extend, we experienced the harsh climate and environments the Tibetans lived through. As a Chinese I could also feel the animosity the Tibetans felt towards the Chinese for interfering with their culture and lifestyle. I guess what we won't miss too much is the smell of Yak butter, bouts of diarrhea and for Ross, vegetable fried rice.

We depart for Chengdu at 1140am flight. Our guide told us to meet at 8am, hotel lobby, with our bags and so on. I'm a person who likes to have breakfast, so I woke up slightly earlier to have breakfast. Ross didn't think much of the western breakfast yesterday and wanted to give it a miss today. At 8 am, when I finished my breakfast, the guide was just walking in to have breakfast. He asked me anxiously whether I had breakfast, I said yes and I was just heading up to get Ross. I assumed he and the driver would be having a snappy breakfast.

At 8am, both me and Ross waited at the lobby with our bags, and the room checked out. Time was ticking away and after 25 mins, I was urged to hurry them up. I walked in and they said they will be done soon. Another 5 to 10 minutes ticked by before they came out from breakfast. Ross went at him for telling us to wait at the lobby at 8am while he himself was so late.

Anyway, it was a silent ride to the airport. We had a police check half way to the airport where the driver hurriedly strapped on his seat belt (he never had his on, ever). It was an hour's ride to the airport. We tipped both the driver and guide before they drove off. By the surprised look on their face, it seems that they were not expecting any? hmmm....

Anyway, it was a relatively smooth journey back to Chengdu. We felt like we were back in civilisation! We had a relatively relaxing day. The first thing was to sort out our laundry. FOr the last 10 days in Tibet, we had lots of dirty and dusty clothes that needed washing. We spent quite some time asking around but didn't manage to find a place that does a bag of laundry for a reasonable sum. In the end, we washed some clothes in the hotel, while I hand-washed most of mine.

Since we also wanted to do a tour of the Panda center, about 10km away from Chengdu, we checked out a Youth Hostel known for such trips. Though a short cab ride away, it was quite a long dirt track in an alley before we reached the hostel. But it was an interesting alley though. The whole place was interesting and popluated with foreigners.

We managed to book our panda tour for the next day. They will pick us up at 7:10am. Another early day for us!

The next thing we had to do was to check out how to get to JiuZhaiGou. After verifying that the airport in JiuZhaiGou was still not ready yet, our other only alternative was the 10 to 12 hours of bus journey. We booked that for 7th June.

For dinner, we tried the local Chengdu cuisine, hotpot! We ordered 2 different types of soup, one half spicy(for me) and the other half bland (for Ross). It's a clever invention to have 2 soups in one hotpot, they should have such offerings in Singapore too! I've enjoyed several spicy Sichuan food with my china colleagues but this time, my stomach didn't managed to hold up. Towards the end of the meal, it was all too spicy. Ross commented his soup was too bland.

TseDang

Today is our last full day in Tibet. We had an early start at 8am. We were served an individually made breakfast- an egg, sausage, 2 slices of bread, marmalade, and 2 small chunks of cake. I thought the bread was good but Ross thought it was dodgy. We drove nearly an hour to the ferry terminal again. This time, there were more people waiting to get on. They were transporting logs of wood onto the boat. More and more tibetan people got onto the boat. We got into an argument with the boatman on the fare payment. He kept pushing us to pay while we kept redirecting him to our guide (such costs are included in our package). So when all nearly twenty people got into the boat, there was a full fledged argument on how much is the fare (we could only guess as it was in tibetan). The boatman insisted on charging 190Y for round trip. I assumed it was for two of us. But later realised the argument was only for Ross's sake. The tour guide passed Ross 100Y to pass to the boatman amidst the argument. In the end, the guide paid 190Y as indicated on the ticket for Ross. It was a long, blazing hot journey to Samye Monastery, the first monastery in Tibet. There was no shelter on the boat, I guess we could only be thankful there wasn't rain. A tibetan lady got pretty sick and was throwing up, leaning over the boat. The boat was operated by motor but moved very slowly. It took us 1.5 hours to reach the other side. On the other side, we got into another vehicle to bring us to Samye Monastery. It was a 4 seater truck that could carry goods at the back. We (me, Ross, guide and driver) sat inside the car, while there were others that climbed up from the back. It felt amazingly cool to feel the sea breeze without the sun on our backs.

It was a 20 mins drive to Samye Monastery. A very humble place, by this stage, all the monasteries are starting to look alike to me. Samye Monastery was surrounded by a small village. That small village seems pretty new. There were something like 4 different levels in the monastery, led by steep steps. When you walk in, that's the assembly hall, the 2nd floor was of Chinese design, the 3rd floor was of Nepalese design. The top floor was kind of a gallery. After touring the place, we went for lunch, vegetable egg fried rice. Im surprised how much vegetarian fried rice Ross is having. The same truck and driver brought us back to the ferry station. We didn't have to wait long. A boat just handed and we went back on that boat. In the return trip, there were only eight of us in a faster boat. It took us only 35 minutes to reach.

We went back to our car, passed by TseDang, to reach Yumbu LhaKang. At the foot of Yumbu Lhakang, there were little shops and lots of horses and camels offering rides. We walked past those and braved ourselves for the labourious climb up. It was a tough climb as expected. I can't imagine the first Nigerian King would want to go up all that distance, of cos he would have people carrying him. I was panting hard and got dust in my windpipe that made me cough badly. Ross was doing much better that I was. We at last made it to Samye. It was not that big inside, though it had an impressive exterior.

Very soon after, we were making our trip downwards. The tour guide asked me whether I was fit to go down. I told him no problem :-) It was such a breeze compared to climbing up.

We had a drinks stop at the bottom and headed back to the hotel soon after.

Gyangtse to TseDang

Spent the day mostly in the 4 wheel drive today. Had to get up an hour earlier than usual to get ready at 8am. We were on the road by 9am. At breakfast though, we saw a group of caucasian travellers, Ross said he saw the Exodus stickers on them. They looked pretty tough to me and was very adventureous with the tibetan food while my puny stomach can only take that much...

It was a tough dirt track that we did. The journey was going to be 350km. It was a good thing we had a very good and cautious driver. Soon after leaving Gyangtse, we came to a huge dam, far away, we could see gorgeous snow mountains. After the dam, we came across a glacier.

We had lunch at Nangartse, a small little village, a stone's throw away from our next attraction, Yamdrok. My only toilet stop, and it was too disguisting to describe. We drove past Yamdrok-tso Lake, the Turquoise Lake and over Gyatso La and across Gampa la pass (5050m) and Karo la (5054m( passes to Tsedang. The turquoise lake we passed by was beautiful and huge. The turquoise colour was so beautiful. We also passed by Yumbulakhang, the earliest castle built in Tibet. Our tour guide suggested doing Samye Monastery today instead of tomorrow and staying overnight at Samye. I thought it will be quite an adventure and Ross agreed too. But we privately thought otherwise later, was it because they could save more money? We reached Yarlung Tsangpo river so that someone could bring us over to Samye, but there were no ferries in sight. Our guide got to know that there wasn't enough people crossing so we will have to wait until tomorrow morning. So we proceeded to our journey to TseDang.


TseDang was a modern "uninteresting" (described in Lonely Planet). After checking into the Snow Pigeon hotel, we ventured into the town on foot, searching for a place for internet and dinner. Found a good internet place but couldn't see any likely place for dinner. Since we had walked quite a fair bit, we took a cab back. We saw our guide at the hotel and he suggested bringing us out for dinner which we agreed. Nothing interesting actually happened after that. It was a typical dinner, very similar to the menus we see at lunchtime.

Gyangtse (2nd June)

Woke up in the morning in the hotel. There seems to be problems with the hot water supply. I reported this to the hotel and they said hot water was exhausted in our side of the rooms and told us to use a bathroom of another hotel room further down the corridor. We did. We were late for breakfast but managed to be on time leaving the hotel for Gyangtse. It was a relatively short journey to Gyangtse, 90km away. When we started the journey, the guide commented that Gyangtse is famous in Tibet for Yak butter and cheese. We made a short stop at flour mill on the way. The flour mill actually obtains its power from a stream nearby (waterwheel), very clever. We were wondering whether we should pay for this extra stop, the guide told us to pass some ballpoint pens to the owner instead, interesting...

We could see Dzong (or Gyangtse Castle) and Pelkhor Chode Monastery from afar. They look terribly impressive. Initially, I thought it was an extension of the Great wall of CHina. That offended the guide deeply. But it was that impressive, even more so cause there was a monastery on the top. We proceeded straight to Pelkhor Chode Monastery (it says Baiju Temple on the entrance ticket). It was founded in 1418, is notable for its superb 100,000 holy images.

After checking into the hotel, we ventured out again. It was only 2pm but that was the end of our planned itinerary. We wanted to check out Dzong, another notable sight recommended by Lonely Planet. It was within walking distance from the hotel. Actually I was notexactly keen to walk all the way up but Ross was very keen. We did walk up all the way in the end. Surprised we survived to the end but we did have to take very frequent stops along the way. Basically it's all ruins, there were some very steep steps along the way. The whole town seems very quiet. I guess Lhasa was the most vibrant town with more pilgrims.

We went to Zhuang Yuan Can ting as recommended by our only China guide book, Lonely Planet. Sweet and sour chicken was highly recommended. We thought this would be a great opportunity to get some meat back into our diet. When we walked into the restaurant, the lady opened the fridge to show us their fresh vegetables and the well-dressed chef was very eager to show us the notebook of pictures and recommendations he has had. We had the sweet sour pork, a dish of spring onions with beef (suspect it's yak meat though) and spinach. Overall, it was pretty good, but still not as good as authentic chinese food. I'm starting to miss proper food so much. The food didn't go down that well with me, had another stomach upset when I reached the hotel while Ross had the opposite problem.

Shigatze (1st June)

We had an easy day today. Had breakfast in the hotel (all our breakfasts are included in the Tibetan package). There wasn't much to choose from, we only had an omelete each. We then proceeded in the four-wheel drive to ZhaShenLunBu Temple. Zha Shen Lun Bu Temple is one of the four "Yellow-hat Sect" Monastries of Tibetan Buddhist. It was founded by the first Dalia Lama in 1447. It is now the residence of the Penchan Lama (2nd to Dalai Lama). The exterior was impressive, though not as impressive as Potala Palace. But the interior was magnificant. In one of the buildings, it housed the world's biggest bronze, gold coated Buddha. It was terribly expensive to take pictures inside the Temple though. It ranged from 75Y to 125Y. There was also an old fortress that was a blackened half-completed image of Potala Palace. The guide mentioned that the current 11th Penchan Lama (11 year old boy) is in gaol in Beijing, and the Chinese have appointed a different Lama as Penchan Lama (who is not recognised by the Dalia Lama). He told us this when there was nobody else around - it is clear that a lot of Tibetans view Tibet as captured by the Chinese with very few freedoms.

After the visit to the Temple, we went to the old town where there was a market. We had passed by here yesterday in the evening but thought there was nothing worth looking. There was also one or two stalls selling something that looked like waxed dog carcass (like waxed duck). It looked gross anyway. It was our misfortune that today, 1st June, happens to be a public holiday, therefore most of the stalls were not open. Unexpectedly, we did enjoy ourselves shopping. The bargaining was quite fun, even though the stall owners liked to do a tight grip on Ross's wrist to prevent him to leaving. That irritated Ross quite a bit. In the end, we bought two bronze elephants, an urn and a door knob. It's quite exciting thinking that we have a whole house to furnish when we get back to Sydney. We had previously bought some Chinese "antique" furniture in HongKong. The only problem is that we still to carry all these for the next three weeks before our visit to Sydney. But I guess we just have to manage somehow. If we were in more established places, maybe we could post things back next time.

We then had lunch at Tenzin restaruant. Ross's sandwich turned out too cheesy. That was the same problem he had last night with the pizza. It was laden with cheese, too much even for a cheese-lover like Ross. I had a vegetarian Nepalese set meal which was to me like an Indian meal back home, only better.

The driver took us back and that was the end of the planned itinerary for the day.

We took a short rest in the hotel and then walked all the way (1km) to the city centre again. We sort of took the indirect route cos when the car took us back, he went past a tibetan quiet area. We walked to that area and took some photos. We then proceeded to China Telecoms and the internet center we went yesterday. We were unsuccessful at both, China Telecoms was closed and the internet center was full of people. We took a cab back to the hotel, intending to use the internet from the hotel.

Overall, the place seems very dusty. I kept producing bloody snot. Food was quite reasonable, the hotel provides a reasonable western restaurant. But right now, we are dying for Fat Angelos, fresh apples and lychee(for me)!