Travel China Planner

My life follows a pattern: Work, eat, play, sleep, work, eat play, sleep…repeat repeat repeat. In some ways, I feel like there are so few differences between life here and life at home. Perhaps I’m getting used to it, perhaps life is the same everywhere.

I would point out that one country has a free press and the other does not. (That’s if you can still call it a free press, even if most newspapers are owned by one or two big conglomerates). At the very least, the press isn’t subject to governmental approval.

Enough of this! Keep your eyes on the headlines, because it’s only going to get more interesting. Check out China Daily Online for a look at the other side. Let me know what you think of that pile of nonsense!

We take a ride where we transfer to peapod boats. The Shennong Stream is a tributary of the Yangtze River off of the Three Gorges area. My picture is dark as I didn’t have time to turn off the flash — but at least I saw it (many didn’t). I was glad I was on the right side of the boat and had just taken out my camera as I caught sight of a wooden box resting lengthwise inside a hole in the cliff. That was it.
The monkeys were not out in the rain and neither would we have been but for the want of seeing the monkeys.

The highlight of the trip is supposed to be when the boatmen get out and use a bamboo rope to tow the boat — pulling it through the water by brute strength. However, this feat was overshadowed for our group when our boat hit a rock and tore a hole in the bottom of the boat. We had a hole in our boat. The two women in the front row could see it. There was water coming in and at one point I helped pass a rag to the front to plug the hole. Now and then you would see the “front captain” bailing. He made us all shift to the left and I was half hanging out being on the outside edge. It makes for a better story. One guy yelled at another boat, “You’re just jealous because your boat doesn’t have a hole in it!”

The singing of the traditional songs from our captain and from other boats as they passed on the river was a treat. I bought a CD of it and hope it brings back lovely memories.

The Lama Temple is the most magnificent Buddhist temple in Beijing, beautiful rooftops, stunning frescoes, magnificent decorative arches, incredible carpentry and a great pair of Chinese lions. The most renowned Tibetan Buddhist temple outside of Tibet, the Lama Temple was converted to a lamasery in 1744 after serving as the former residence of Emperor Yong Zheng. The temple’s most prized possession is its 17m-high sandalwood the Maitreya Buddha statue in the Wanfu Pavilion. An absorbing exhibition at the rear displays numerous Tibetan items and chronicles the lineage of the Dalai Lamas.

Hopefully you will be able to at least get an idea of what it looks like through the pictures. I think one of the coolest parts was just to see all of the different people meditating and praying. There is a small platform-like thing on the ground that people kneel on when they are meditating. In front of them is a small bucket on a

table where they light their incense. In front of that is a bigger barrel where people discard the incense. They light the incense, then make prayers, and then, they put the incense in the bigger barrel to let it burn out.

On the streets outside of the Lama Temple, shops literally line the streets with stores filled with incense. All of them have some other stuff, but literally, every shop is the same.

Also, there are many places with the grounds that you are not allowed to take pictures. So, essentially, this includes the Buddhas, the tapestries, etc.

The Confucian Temple:

It reminds me of the Lama Temple. They are in the same part of town, but the difference is that the Lamas worship at the Lama Temple and nothing much happens at the Confucian Temple compared to it. It is still a neat thing to see. This temple also has 190 stones/slabs that record the 13 Confucian

classics, consisting of 630,000 Chinese characters.

We have arrived in Chongqing! sounds more exciting than it actually is, well we woke up rather early in chendu to catch a train to Chongqing. wasnt to bad, only a 4 hour jouney which was a bit of larf really. as this was our 1st train journey within China we didnt really no what to expected! once we arrived at the station, it was the usual overcrowed hustle and bustle of the china folk. But being the white boys that we are, the security guards let us skip abit of the Q and we found our selves on the platform as quick as a click of finger!

The trains were all lenghthy double deckers and took quite a while to find our carrage. eventualy we stumble across platform. We settled down strate away and wfell asleep pretty snappy really. However Jing and I stayed awake taking in the sights from the window, and i noticed a balled pretty stocked guy doing matial art moves on the otherside of the train; thought it was pretty cool! But later on he started looking at me up and down and stairing at my arms from across the carrage.

He then later on challanged me to another game to prove him self again. we had to handshake and twist each others wrists the opposite dirrection to see who could last longer. The match started of sitting down over a table, i was winning slightly so i twisted his wrist round to the point that we both had to stand up.

We arrived in Chongqing around 12.30 and were met by a driver who picked us up in a huge bus and took us to an office where we were due to arrange our next few days travel to Wanzhou and our river jouney up the Yangtzi River. He then showed us to a Hot Pot Restaurant which we were looking forward to alot. However he decied to join us un-invited. Later on whern the food arrived we found out he was not a very nice dinner guest ATALL! He ate pretty much all the food leaving us scraps, and splashed me and Jing with scolding oil and didnt even say sorry! Any food he didnt like he spat on the floor. After face Booking it up strolled round the grimey city that is Chongqing.

Lijiang is an utterly charming historic (800 year old!) Chinese town, it was designated a UNESCO World Heritage town in 1996.featuring labyrinthian cobblestone streets, gurgling streams and canals especially designated for drinking, washing vegetables, and washing clothes, traditional Naxi (pronounced Na-hee) architecture, as well as an unbelievable array of souvenir merchants who cater to the hoards of tourists who provide the major source of income here. The weather was cool in the morning and evening, and we only needed light jackets at midday. The sun shown brightly. It was not too crowded.

More than half of the under 300,000 native Naxi people live in Li Jiang. They look rather Tibetan and are interesting for their matrilineal culture and pictographic language of 1400 characters which was created over 1000 years ago and is still in use today (!)

My low point was definitely the middle-of-the-night trip by ambulance to a rural Lijiang hospital. Let’s just say that between cultural and language barriers, and differing standards of cleanliness and privacy, that 12 hours was a challenging experience as a chaperone.

I will continue with more news of Lijiang in my next installment!