Great Wall Ramblings

We complete out travels in China in the eastern seaboard city of Shanghai. To get there from Chongqing, we take the train - a mode of transport we'd so far only sampled briefly to get us into Chengdhu from the airport. After the perils of the Song Pan bus and the frustrations of domestic air delays, this was one journey I'd really been looking forward to, and maybe because of that I'd slightly over-sold it to myself, painting a picture in my mind of trans-continental romance, watching the miles roll past  from the window of awood-panelled art-deco dining car...well, no, not really. As would be bleeding obvious had I only stopped to think about it, this was in the main an exercise in function over form - a fairly packed long-distance service ferrying a full load of passengers from one far-flung corner of the country to another - quickly, efficiently and in an adequate but fairly basic level of comfort. Not that different to a domestic flight, in other words - but without the...

Anyone who remembers how delighted we were to find ourselves in Lijiang might be surprised to learn how equally delighted we found ourselves to be leaving it. A bit like some giant sugary confection, the first bite is a heady rush but the taste soon cloys and before you know it, you've had enough. Its the full-on consumerism, I reckon, that does it - the way everything and everyone is either geared around buying or selling. The irony of walking down Wuyi Street just by our hotel, past placards reminding dutiful citizens of their Core Socialist Values, all the while being jostled by twenty-somethings hurtling headlong to the bars and fast-food joints of Lijiang's nightclub district needs no pointing out. Pretty yes, cute, undeniably. But two days - enough. One thing we would be sorry to be saying goodbye to though were those clear blue skies. Where we were headed, there weren't going to be none of those. Another flight (and another delayed one - nothing too serious this tim...

Anyone who recalls our journey from Song Pan to Chengdu will recall the fun we had making the 400km journey by bus. So it was with some relief, then, that we looked forward to travelling on to Lijiang borne on the wings of a dove, courtesy of an Airbus 319 operated by Tibet Airways. Qualms about contribution to climate change aside, this was to be a flight of barely 90 minutes, pick up from our hotel at a very civilised 1240pm, flight at 3.45 pm, touch down in Chengdu at 5.20, tucked up in our hotel in plenty of time for tea, lovely. At first everything runs like clockwork - running fast, indeed, because a little way into the flight the on-board info is telling us we're due to land a little before 5, twenty minutes early. Sure enough, before long there is the town of Lijiang, down there smiling up at us through clear skies. Splendid. And then...we go on a bit, and then a bit more, and after a while it becomes clear the plane is circling. Now we've passed 5.00 but still not 5.20...

We move on from Song Pan, leaving the mountains and the Tibetan regions behind us. Up to this point, Sian has had the sense of something missing - something of the old China she knew 30, nearly 40 years ago, perhaps. The journey from Song Pan to Chengdu sets this to rights: A 400km bus ride across atrocious roads, through hairpin mountain passes both jaw-dropping and heart-stopping (yes, that is a sheer drop of thousands of feet just inches away from the bus outside wheels, and no barrier in sight) in equal measure. But ride, multiple interruptions for toilet stops and road-works and the scenery are just the hors de ouevre for this little nostalgia-fest. Most reminiscent of all of the China of old are our fellow passengers - or at least some of them. Most on the bus are, to be fair, just ordinary folk wanting like us to get the long journey done as quickly and quietly as possible. Most, but not all. Boarding we find our allocated seats near the front already filched, but no worries, th...

Just a brief update ahead of our Chengdu posting to say that we have finally conquered our photo gremlins and managed to add photos to each of our previously published posts. Happy viewing!

Moving on...leaving Lagamusi we head deeper into Sichuan Province and before long the mountains fall away, and we've driving wide, empty highways that run through marshy grassland, spooling out to the horizon like some forgotten page from the Great American Road-trip, until....red tailights flicker, and traffic up ahead starts to nudge up nose to bumper. A rural traffic jam, cars and lorries pulled to a halt on the other wise empty carriage way behind a police car blocking off the road ahead. The problem, we are informed, is roadworks, of the kind that apparently involve closing off the whole highway in both directions for the next two hours. But fear not! A ready diversion is at hand, a mere 36 kilometres across the grassland on unmade, mud and stone-flint roads. We join the line of traffic peeling off from the main road to our left, start to rumble up the track until, a hundred or so metres further on, another halt. This time the cause is more readily apparent - two local entrepr...

From Xiahe its back in the car with guide Lilly and driver whose name we've rudely failed to find out, from the city up, up, up into the mountains and grasslands beyond. A half day travel ahead to the little town of Langmusi where we'll spend the next night. On the way, stop by the roadside adjacent to some Nomad tents and disembark to go and make parley with the locals. yes, its one of those tow-curling live-like-the-natives encounters that are embarrassing not only for the sense of intrusion into someone else's private lives but also the utter contrivance of the whole thing. A more pragmatic view says it puts money in people's pockets where its needed, so whatever - we put on our best pleased-to-meet-you faces and trudge up the embankment to meet our new friends. We are introduced to a young woman in her early twenties with two small children and a coterie of baby yaks to look after. The tent is a kind of temporary home put up by Nomad families whilst tending to thei...