Our Travel Blog

We woke up to another hazy day, we were docked in Baidicheng, also known as White Emperor City. There was an early tour, which we declined!!

After breakfast we set sail for the first of the Three Gorges.

En-route we went to an on-board demonstration of Snuff Bottle Painting! This is an amazing art where the artist paints inside a small bottle about 2.5 inches high and about 1.5 inches across (originally used for snuff!!). The quality of the art work would be amazing if painted on the outside of the bottle, panted on the inside it is phenomenal.

Artist Adding our Name in English and Chinese inside the Tea Pot

 We cruised along the Yangtze for a while, general views below.

All Docking is done at floating barges

In Winter the River will rise Almost to Bridge Level

Next we entered the first, and smallest of the Three Gorges, Qutang Gorge.

Entering Gorge, in Winter Water Rises to the top of the Light Area

Terraces for Crops Traffic Sign, Tributary Entering From Right

Not Sure About This Sign!

Caves, Many Coffins Have been found in Caves Like This – It is Closer to Heaven As the day progressed the weather cleared a little. We left the Qutang Gorge bound for the Wu Gorge

Now into the Wu Gorge

Next stop Goddess Stream, named for the Goddess Rock shown below, the smaller rock sown to the right of center obviously looks like a Goddess to the locals!

Zoom in to the Goddess

We moored at a floating dock to take smaller boats into the Lesser Gorges Goddess Stream

At the end of the Gorge we were treated to a singing and dancing show by our guides, The Goddess Stream is fed from mountain water exiting from a cave.

Back on board we headed along the Yangtze towards the third Gorge and a set of locks. Unfortunately, we will arrive at the locks sometime after midnight.

Tonight we had a farewell dinner, where we were served Chinese dishes rather than the usual buffet.

OK, today is the day I should finally get up to date.

We had a great nights sleep, although breakfast finishes at 0830 so we have to be up a little earlier than we would have liked. The morning was spent reading, resting and exploring the ship. We met up with our “table mates” at breakfast, a German couple, an Australian couple, an English Couple and an English doctor on his own.

Below are a few shots along the river, unfortunately the visibility is fairly poor. I am not sure whether it is pollution or, as my old met. teacher (Bert Marsden, for you Brits who may remember him from the BBC) used to call it “Anticyclonic Gloom”

Anticyclonic Gloom

Human Power at Work

Motor Power at Work

Boat to Ferry Passengers to Shore

In the afternoon we arrived at Shibaozhai and took a walking trip ashore to visit a 12 story pagoda. To get there we had to negotiate 100’s of street vendors, bur they weren’t too pushy.

The original village was lost after the building of the 3 Gorges dam when the water level rose about 90m, so a new one was built by the Government.

Village Gate

To get to Shibaozhai you had to negotiate the Drunken Bridge (as named by the locals). The bridge consists of 2×6 planks placed over 4 steel cables. It is far from stable with many people walking across it!! In the winter when the level of the Yangtze rises, the water is only a few inches under the planking.

The Drunken Bridge

To Protect the Pagoda from the waters, a dam was built around it, which also serves as a walkway from the bridge.

The Dam

Carvings in the Wall

Without the dam the winter water level would come to about 3/4 of the way up the door

The Pagoda

Above are statues in the Pagoda, and yes we did make it to the top. It was a breeze after Tibet!!

On the way back to the boat we found a couple of ornaments that we wanted to buy, as we were looking the stall owner showed us the price on her calculator. 180 yen each. We figured 200 yen for two was a good place to start the “game”. She came back with 125 each. This seemed in the ball park that we thought was reasonable, so we decided to buy them. Unfortunately our combined resources were only 135 yen so we had to walk away and leave them. After two steps the stall owner shouted “OK, OK” and sold us both for 135!!!! Working on the theory she was still making a profit, that was one h*ll of a markup!

In the evening the ships crew put on a fashion show of Chinese clothing through out the ages.

The pictures aren’t the best as they were taken from some distance without flash.

Finally I am up to date with the blog!!!

I am almost up to date, all previous entries have pictures and are now complete. By tomorrow I should be fully caugt up.

We woke up to a warm humid morning, headed down to breakfast then out to meet our guide. Today was Panda day. We were worried the inclement weather may cause the pandas to seek shelter, and we wouldn’t see them.

We arrived at the research station, and followed the pathways user an arch of bamboo trees. It didn’t take too long to find our first panda perched up in a tree.

A few minutes later another panda arrived, and then a few more. We had timed it perfectly, the pandas had just eaten and it was rest time. Pandas eat upwards of 40kg of bamboo per day, it takes about 16 hours to find and eat this. To allow it to digest they need to rest, evidently pandas are not lazy, they are energy efficient!!

We saw an number of pandas of different ages from 1 month through to many years. It is worth reading about what happens at the research station, through their efforts they have turned the decline of the panda population in the wild into a small increase. Currently there are only around 1500 in the wild, 300 in captivity including 140 or so at this research facility. Once finished with the pandas we had lunch and headed out to the railway station four our trip to Chongqing to join our cruise. Once on board we had 3 questions to answer, were we vegetarian, what’s our next destination and would we like to upgrade to a suite (very good price sir!!). We succumbed very quickly to the offer after he showed us the cabin we had booked. The new one was twice the size with a work area, sofa and bath tub!!

Food…..

Food, Glorious Food

Time to Digest
Where’s my Back Legs?

Mother and Cub

Same Mother and Two Cubs

Panda Kindergarten Four of the Pandas are 3 month old, the one in the pink box is 1 month old.

Red Panda

Random Couple with Panda

We traveled on the high speed “Bullet Train” cruising at 295Km/h

High Speedwe

We were picked up at the station by our guide and driver, and driven off to the port. Unfortunately both entrances to the port are closed for construction, meaning a 200m walk to the boat. As this provides such an inconvenience for us poor tourists the tour company hired a porter to carry our cases!! I was a little too embarrassed to take a photo, but instead of using a trolley the porter had a 5ft bamboo pole and hooked the cases to either end and carried it across his shoulders!

Although the boat did not sail until 21:00 we were allowed to board around 17:00 which gave us plenty of time to freshen up.

The downtown area of Chongqing was beautifully illuminated as the pictures below show.

The Blue Lines are Cranes at Construction Sites

The Green Building is in the shape of a boat (at least it is in the imagination of its German Architect. The building changes colour, and as we moved away the shape of a boat could be seen from certain angles

Following in a Nautical Theme… Sails on Apartment Buildings

Being an American based cruise company there is a lot of English speaking people on board, much easier on the ears!! The boat is the largest on the Yangtze river at 10,000 tons and 400 passengers.

We finally departed Tibet, true to previous experience we were 3 hours late in departing. Our original flight was 1315, this was changed to 1615 and then cancelled last night. The next flight we were put on was at 1310, progress a 5-minute gain! This flight too was cancelled and we were put on a 1610 flight after two of our flights were cancelled. I am beginning to develop a healthy disrespect for internal Chinese flights. When we arrived at the airport the flight departure was showing 1610, which is what we were expecting. Shortly after a further delay was announced, the flight had been delayed until 1610 (that was not a typo!!), go figure. Anyway due to other commitments by our driver and guide we finished up spending 5 hours at the airport, it wasn’t too bad as there was plenty of time for people watching. Lunch was a bit of a disaster, it came s a package including a soft drink, coke for Lyn, Sprite for me. No Coke no Sprite! Water for both….. no water! OJ for both, no OJ! Finished up with Hot OJ…. Not good.

Yesterday was our last tour day in Tibet, which was probably good as we were both feeling the effect of altitude. In the morning we went to the Drak Yerpa monastery. The nice thing about this place was its location, about 1 hour north of the city and well into the countryside. We went through a small pass on the way there, and like all good Tibet high spots it was festooned with prayer flags.

All good monasteries are inevitability located on a hill; this one was no exception, further up the hill are a number of caves where early kings and Dalai Lama(s) would go to meditate. The longest meditation was believed to be 3 years 3 months 3 days and 3 hours! However, to get to these caves required walking a distance of 1.5 miles with a vertical component of 1650ft (500m) this walk started out at around the 15000 ft. mark. Despite having just developed a cold it wasn’t too bad but I doubt if I’d volunteer to do it again.

The Last Two Pictures are of the Caves

One disappointing thing was that all the palaces, temples and monasteries contained virtually the same items, statues (all in the same style), wooden blocks from which the scriptures are printed, butter wax candles and fistfuls of money being left as offerings, although it must be said that the most common denomination of these notes was 1/10^th of a yen which translates to around 2 cents. However, it was still worth the trip to each one.

On the way back to the city we stopped off at a fairly isolated farmhouse to see how the country folk live, the answer is fairly basically except for the 32” flat screen satellite TV! Other than that they raised their own animal, grain and vegetables, not my preferred lifestyle as the nearest computer store would be over 100km away!

Pantry

Living Room

Kitchen

Eating Area in Kitchen

Stove

HouseCrops Drying in Courtyard

Ceiling Decoration

In the picture above we were offered a traditional snack made from barley, butter and cheese. The three ingredients are served in the bowl and you mix them by hand! Our guide told us it was pretty strong stuff and may give us “loose movements”. He had some, we declined. He spent the afternoon looking for washrooms, we didn’t!!

After lunch we had some free time so we looked around the shops and then headed off to our favourite coffee shop.

In the afternoon we headed off to the Sera Monastery to watch the monks debating. For some reason, known only to the monks, cameras were not allowed but you could take pictures on cell phones, my camera may have accidentally self activated a few times. Although we understood not a word of what was being said, the physical actions presented plenty of entertainment!

Back at the hotel I collapsed like a sack of potatoes rice for a couple of hours, then we took a walk around the corner to one of the local restaurants that had an English sign outside. We had a good meal and our last fill of Yak.

We arrived at a rainy Chengdu around 1830 and as we got off the aircraft we experienced the good old Chines tradition of fitting 200 passengers on a bus designed for 100. Not pleasant. We arrived at our hotel about an hour later. Our plan was to lounge around for a bit then go to bed and sleep off Tibet. Because I have a hotel frequent stayer card for this chain they forced me to accept some tickets for free, alcoholic, drinks from the bar! How could I refuse? We got to the room and it was all decked out in a Panda theme.

Sorry there are no photos but I can either spend an hour sorting them out and uploading them or I can try to sleep off the cold and Tibet. You lose, temporarily.

Tomorrow we have a couple of hours on the bullet train(there wasn’t) there maybe WiFi there, then we have 3 or 4 days on the boat, again I am not sure of the WiFi situation(sometimes there is, sometimes there isn’t), so it may be a few days before I get anything posted. I can still write the blogs in Word, but I can’t embed the pictures unless I am online.

No Blog today due t matters not entirely beyond my control. I started developing a cold last night, then this morning we visited a monastery which involved walking 1,5 miles starting at 15928′ and finishing above 16500′. Of course what goes up must come down, so a fairly strenuous day. All we have tomorrow is a 2.5 hour flight which will land approximately 12500  below the height it took off from!

WARNING!

This entry may well be even more incomprehensible than usual!We have done one h**l of  lot of walking today, mostly vertical and have had a lot of information to absorb so both body and brain hurt!!! The title refers both to the physical effort (which would have been moderate even at sea level) as well s the mentall effort to take in all the details and man made objects we saw including 1 mausoleum which was made from over 3700kg of gold and  10,000+  gems!

Thanks to the three who took the time yo answer te Lion Quiz, all get a point for getting the right answer but Jeff gets a bonus point for his eloquent wording!

In answer to a question, the Dalai Lama was not at home, he got kicked out of the country by the people who sell sweet and sour pork with fried rice, after the Tibet uprising in 1959 and is now persona non gratta residing in India.

Even less writing to day…. sorry

This morning we headed off to the Drepung Monastery, the largest Monastery in Tibet.

View of TempleEvery Year a 500ft Acroll is unrolled in this area

Holy Dogs? (the place is full of them)

STAIRS!!!!!

More stairs and Painted Rocks

Close Up of Rocks

Rocks stairs and Scroll Area

Hand Powered Prayer Wheels (to be rotated clockwise)

Water Powered Prayer Wheel

Incense Burning

For lunch we headed back to the Tibet Family Kitchen that was closed yesterday. It turned out to be just as the name suggested a small restaurant in a Tibetan family home. The food was excellent, yak meat dumplings and yak meat with fried lettuce.

Sitting room (where we ate)

Lyn Studying Menu

Dining Room

Food

After lunch we had a little spare time so we explored the local area.

Quilt in Back Street

Back Street Souvenir Stall

Back Street Views

Main Street Lhasa Views

The biggie of the day was the Potala Palace. You will see from some of the pictures sloped walkways climbing up the outside of the Palace, this is the only way in. The yellow and red portions were built in the 7th century. The white section was added in the 17th  century.  The Paace served as the Dalai Lamas winter home.

Again we were very restricted in what we could photograph, unfortunately

Random Couple Below PalaceDrums to call to prayer in the morning and signal a ban on noise in the evening

View of Lhasa from the Palace

Yet again due altitude related knackerdness (Tibetan word for sickness) this will be mostly pictures with references in blue.

We met up with our guide at the civilised hour of 09:00 and headed out to Norbulingka, meaning Treasure Park, the traditional summer home of the Dalai Lama.

That Random Couple Again Sitting at the Gateway

Main Entrance

OK, no one was brave enough to provide an answer to a similar question a few days ago, these two lions are more colour than the previous ones, which is male, which is female and why. Surely someone can at least hazard a guess?

View from Street

In most of today’s picture the scenes will be outside ones only, as cameras are not allowed inside.

Next we headed off to lunch, originally it was meant to be at a small family home type place, but for some reason it was closed (today was a minor religious holiday here so that may have been why). It was a little unfortunate as the place looked “interesting”.

We finished up at a more commercial place that served authentic Tibetan fare where we had our first taste of Yak meat, and pretty good it was too.

After this we walked to the Jokhang Temple the holiest place for Buddhism in Tibet.

Below are some vies of the general area approaching the Temple.

Offerings to the Gods

Incense (burning juniper branches) to clear the air of evil.

Tibetans will attempt to make a pilgrimage to the temple at least once. Some will come bu car or public transport, some will walk for up  to a year and others will travel on hands and knees according to their devoutness.

Next some pictures from within the temple grounds

Pilgrims at Prayer at the Temple Entrance

Views of the Temple.

Inside photos not allowed.

As part of the pilgrimage people complete three different circuits, the first is a circuit within the temple, the second or Bark Hor is a 1km circuit of the temple and the third is a circuit of Lhasa. we did the first two, views below.

There Just Happened to be a Fabric Store on the Circuit!

Two Monks

View of Potala Palace (More tomorrow)

Colourful Dress

Pilgrim – Device in her hand is a Prayer Wheel which is swung to rotate the cylinder clockwise

Next stop was the Tibet Museum, again no inside photos.

Cutting Leather for Boot Heels

Mini Boot Trinkets

Sewing Soles to Boot Bases

Embroidery fro Boot Decorating

 Making Books from their own Paper.

Lastly was a trip we had requested outside of the tour itinerary. A friend of ours had been a volunteer in Tibet many moons ago, and one of the things the group did was to build a soccer pitch at an orphanage. He still keeps in contact with the director, so we decided to visit her. The orphanage provides a home for 114 orphans from all over Tibet and puts them through school and college and will continue to house them until the find a job. If they can’t find a job, they can sty at the orphanage and be taught handicrafts to make items that can be sold to raise funds. Primarily they make paper and books as well as Tibetan boots.

Our visit had an added benefit, our tour guide was impressed with the work being done at the orphanage and is going to try and get his tour group to add it as a destination. He is also going to fund raise from his friends and associates!!

For some reason a couple of the photos would not load properly.

This covers the two days traveling to Tibet.

Woke up this morning to a misty start. The city of Xining is different the others we have stayed at, it is much quieter both traffic and pedestrian wise. Te sidewalks are probably 6 to 8 times wider than Beijing. We left out marbled palace room and headed down to breakfast. The breakfasts are buffet style, and I went hunting for the omelette station; there wasn’t one. I asked one of the chefs who spoke English, and the next thing I knew a junior cook had been sent off to find and chop the ingredients an make me an omelette. Seems there is usually no call for them; it was the best omelette so far this trip.

Next we headed out to the local supermarket to get some snacks for the train, as well as some bottled water. The supermarket was enormous, think a large Walmart on steroids. Shopping done, it was back to the hotel for 30 minutes before meeting up with our driver for the trip to the railway station. Travelling to Tibet is not straight forward, you need a Chinese Visa, a Tibet travel permit, a train ticket and in our case two passports! Our passports were set to expire n April 2017 which would have been fine for this journey, but our travel agent advised us to get a new 10-year passport as this would allow us to obtain a multi entry Chinese visa good for 10 years. If we had kept with the old passport or got a 5 year one, then the visa would only be a single entry one for the same price.

We final obtained the boarding pass, and it was off to security, just like an airport. My can of deodorant was confiscated as it was deemed inflammable! All we had to do now was say good by to our guide and wait for the train.

The New Xining Railway Station

We had pulled a bit of a trick in getting the train accommodation we did. We booked a sleeper, but the best sleeper they had was 4 berths. Being the quiet, shy retiring couple we are we didn’t relish a 22-hour trip with a couple of stranger who, in all probability we wouldn’t be able to communicate with. We finished up paying for the 4 berths in the cabin which really wasn’t that expensive and so got it ail to ourselves. Once we got on board we were really glad we went that route, the cabins were minuscule with 2 upper and 2 lower bunks which doubled as seating.

Good for 2 Cramped for 4

We met up with a group of Chines people in the same car who came from Toronto, so that helped us greatly when it came to ordering dinner. Again good prices, a filling meal for the 2 of us for $20. Currently we are travelling on a plateau about 9000ft above sea level. By about 5AM tomorrow we will be at the highest point of 16,655ft before descending into Lhasa at a mere 13,500ft. The train is equipped with oxygen ports and breathing tubes are available if required! Below are general views along the way.

A little hard to tell from the above photos, but that truck is carrying 26 vehicles, loaded 2 abreast!

Hand Cut  Sheaves of Wheat

Many of the workers we saw were hand cutting the crops, a few had combine harvesters and one enterprising girl was using a whipper-snipper!!

Scare Crows Chinese Style

Our Train

Sunset

Yaks

Village in the Foothills

Closer View of Village

More Yaks

Almost all the country houses we saw had large walled in areas.

Small Town – Big Police Station

Yak Close up

Army Camp

Military Helicopter

Not Sure – But it was colourful

Not Yaks – Sheep

5*  Sleeper China Style

Up Marke House
In many places tents were set up in the fields.

The above is for our friend Charlie who was having problems installing a steel roof, it’s easy just weigh it down with cinder blocks!

We arrived in Lhasa on time to the minute. Once we had cleared “immigration” we met up with our guide and headed to the hotel. Compared with the recent “palaces” we have been staying in this one is a little less extravagant, but none the less perfectly adequate for us.

After arriving it had been suggested  that we relaxed and acclimatised for the rest of the day as we are at 12,000ft  or 3656 metres above sea level. After being cooped up on a train we decided to risk a slow walk for some exercise. What better to do than go and find the only geocache in Lhasa. We succeeded with no ill effects.

For homework you can read about Lhasa

An interesting eating experience last night. Our guide had recommended a restaurant opposite the hotel, with a caution not to eat at the smaller establishments. We headed over to the restaurant only to find we were in the land of no English speakers! Through a series of pictures on the menu we managed to order a main dish and rice each. The staff seemed to believe this was not enough and kept pushing for us to order soup and other appetizers. Luckily we were able to resist, when the dishes came we were convinced that they had brought us 2 main dishes each! Unfortunately, it didn’t’ all get eaten. After dinner we walked along the street where the smaller restaurants were. I now understand the caution from our guide. In many cases the food was stored outside and was still moving (as in living / breathing) There were bullfrogs that could be killed and cooked to order, lobsters suffered the same fate as did some unidentifiable thing that would have been at home on a Klingon dish.

This morning we headed out to the Terra Cotta Warriors site. Again you can read about them HERE.

Before we arrived at the site we stopped at a small factory that makes full size and miniature warriors using the same techniques as the original artisans used. The warriors are hollow and their heads are detachable. The reason for this is to allow the heat and moisture to escape during the firing and cooling process.

Full Size Torso

Detailing Models

The Kiln

The factory also made Chinese Lacquered Furniture

Having bought our souvenir warrior we headed off to the real thing

Both of us thought that the warriors were in the open, but they are all under the cover of buildings. Makes sense really, as they need to preserve them from the elements. The warriors were first discovered in 1974 by a couple of farmers digging a well. When the archaeologists started work they discovered most of the warriors and other artifacts had been destroyed, this destruction was not a recent thing, it dated back to shortly after the warriors were created when the peasants revolted and set fire to the wooden structure covering the site.

In the photos below, the complete warriors are the result of painstaking reconstruction from the damaged parts. Other pictures show the state that the site was found in, and also some area where digging has not yet commenced. Some areas have been left untouched while research into preservation was carried out. When the warriors were first discovered they were all brightly painted. Within days of uncovering them the colours all faded.

Only the first few rows have been restored

Below are the remains as found

The Warriors Hospital – renovation in progress


Pictures of the warriors before the colour faded

After touring the 3 pits that are known to contain warriors, we headed off for a visit to the museum and some lunch.

After lunch our luck changed (for the worse) as it started to rain. We headed back to the car for our trip to the airport. We were a little early and would have a couple of hours to kill, unfortunately after waiting an hour, a 90 minute delay was announced for the flight. Seems delays are common over here! Our delay was “undelayed” by 15 minutes so we got airborne about an hour late.

Driving into the city of Xining we were amazed at how man of the high-rises were lit up with both stationary and moving lights, a little like Las Vegas. On arriving at the hotel we had our first real issue of the trip, there was no reservation for us. After about 10 minutes of checking and hunting through the reservation system it transpired that we were a day early! Luckily there was room available so here we are. Travel agent has been asked to confirm the remaining hotel reservations!!!

The wait was worth it, we have a fantastic suite, enough marble to sink a battleship, two 40″ TV’s a full bathroom and an additional washroom, bedroom, sitting room and even a washing machine!!

Almost certainly there will be no blog tomorrow as we board a train in the afternoon and spend 22 hours going through the mountains to Tibet. Hopefully there will be reasonable WiFi in Tibet.