Viv's Travel Diary: November 2006

Home Sweet Home

Well, I'm home at last and back to the real world. Not sure how long I'll survive but I'm back for the time being anyway!!

Some brilliant Chinese signs

As I'm sure a lot of you will have noticed, when you go abroad and see signs that have been translated into English, sometimes they're not entirely accurate, have been translated just that bit too literally or are just plain odd. We saw some fantastic ones on our travels and here's a selection.

Pete at the wicket office

The Great Wall (and yes, it really was great!)

For me, one of the best parts of the trip was our visit to the Great Wall. We went to a part called Simatai, which is well out of the city (120km from Beijing) and thus also away from the crowds of tourists and souvenir sellers, and it was a brilliant day - blue skies and sunny. Having seen the wall in so many photos and on tv it was incredible to be climbing on it, and definitely something i'll remember for a long time!

Our lunch spot, on top of tower number 7 :-)

Olympic Mascots

In Tiananmen Square they've got a countdown to the Olympics and huge models of the mascots - Beibei (the fish), Yingying (a Tibetan antelope), Huanhuan (the Olympic flame), Nini (the swallow) and finally Jingjing (the panda).

There was some controversy in China earlier this year when the Olympic Committee suggested holding the volleyball in Tiananmen Square - the Chinese didn't like it cos they thought it was wrong for Chairman Mao (whose portrait is hung at one end of the square) to be looking at scantily clad bodies. Brilliant!

Terracotta Warriors

The Warriors were discovered by a farmer in 1974 when he was digging a well. This said farmer now sits in the visitor centre signing books then pushing them dismissively towards you when he's done his job - nice! They were very impressive to see - they've uncovered over 7000 warriors, horses and chariots already and excavations are continuing. Each warrior is said to be individual, having been modelled on the warriors of the time.

Pandas in Chengdu

A highlight on the trip was visiting the panda breeding centre in Chengdu. The centre is designed to help boost the number of giant pandas, which at present is only around 1200 worldwide, and we were lucky enough to be able to see some baby pandas that were only a few months old. Unfortunately we couldn't take photos of them so you'll just have to be happy with the ones I got of the older bears! One of the pandas in this first picture is Jing Jing, a mascot of the upcoming Olympic Games. I could say I knew which one it is, but that would just be lying. ;-)

Three Gorges and the Yangtze River

As some of you might know, the Chinese are in the final stages of building a dam in the Three Gorges which, when finished and fully operational, will be the largest dam in the world and supply between 9% and 11% of China's total electricity.

This unfortunately means that over 1.5 million people have been displaced from towns and villages in the Three Gorges area and moved to Government constructed relocation towns on higher land to enable the flooding of the gorges, and many archaeological sites have been lost.

While we were spending our 3 nights on the Yangtze the water level was actually raised a further 2 metres to around 156m above sea level. Although still very pretty, I can only imagine what the area would have looked like prior to the flooding, which will eventually leave the river 175m above sea level, over 100m higher than it originally was.

The damn Dam, as some people have taken to calling it.

One of the newly built relocation villages. Some are already experiencing problems with the buildings collapsing into the river due to the fact that they're built on what is essentially just an unstable pile of soil.

Scenery of the gorges.

'Trackers' - these are the men that pull the boats upstream when the river gets too shallow to use the oars any more.

Karaoke and ballroom dancing on board the ship - the Chinese just luuuuurrvvv their karaoke!

Yangshuo

Our first stop on the tour was at a place called Yangshuo, in the southern province of Guangxi. It was a good place to break us in gently, as there was still Western food and toilets but the Chinese way of life was very much present. We had a lovely couple of days taking in the surrounding countryside by way of a bike ride and boat trip, going to see a local show and doing a cookery course, with varying degrees of success!

Some of the 20,000 limestone karsts that line the banks of the Li River.

The finished products of the cookery course!

Moon Hill.

Preparing for the bike ride!

Hong Kong

I spent a few days in Hong Kong before the start of my tour through China and took in a few of the sights - the view from The Peak, the sound and light show and a few of the many markets.

Looking down on Hong Kong Island from the top of the Peak cable car line.

Hong Kong's double-decker trams.

Hong Kong Island by day....

and by night.

Vientiane and the Boat Festival

Hannah, Laura, Jess and I managed to time our visit to the Laos capital, Vientiane quite well, so that it coincided with the festival they hold to celebrate the end of the monsoon season. As well as the boat races, there were loads of market stalls, fair ground rides and fun to be had!