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We had a long day ahead of us to get to Shanghai. We had to leave our hotel in Lhasa at 8am, and then drive for 90 mins to get to Gongkar airport. Our plane left Gongkar at 11am, and arrived in Chengdu at around 1pm. We had a 2 hour wait until our flight to Shanghai, and we finally arrived at just after 5pm. We should have caught the Maglev train, which could have taken us from the airport to downtown Pudong in about 7mins, but I didn’t know how to get from where the Maglev stopped to our hotel, so we just caught a taxi from the airport, forgetting completely that we would be in peak hour traffic. We arrived at The Eton Hotel at around 7pm, and were pleasantly surprised when they upgraded us to a suite on the 30th floor. The room was just fantastic, more like a small apartment that a hotel room. It has a separate lounge room and office, and a bathroom with a huge square bath. There were 3 flat screen TV’s (one in the bathroom, one in the bedroom, one in the lounge), and the view over Pudong was just fantastic!

Next day, we went looking for a doctor, Angie was feeling like I did back in Chengdu. We found an international doctor in Pudong and went and saw him, and he basically did the least amount he could do before charging us 1100 Yuan and sending us on our way, total waste of time.

Next day, We went for a walk through Pudong toward the river, walked past the Orient Pearl but didn’t feel in the least bit inclined to go in. We went for a walk along the riverside walk which was really nice, and then hopped on the Metro and took the train over to Nanjing Road.

There are so many touts along Nanjing Road, even more than there are on Nathan Road in Kowloon! You can’t walk 10 metres without someone coming up and saying “Hello, Watch!”. I kept explaining that my name isn’t Watch, but that didn’t stop them……. We spent a but of time walking up and down Nanjing Road, and then up and down the Bund, before catching the train back over to Pudong and walking the long way back to the motel. It was a long day, but we got to see a lot.

On the 20th, We caught up with a Jocelyn, a friend that I had met online over at the Lonely Planet Forums. We arranged to meet at Yuyuan Gardens, and have dumplings. We had to wait in line for half an hour to get a table upstairs, this place is very popular, and very famous. And it’s easy to see why, we had heaps of different sorts of dumpling, and they were all really nice. We had a great time talking with Jocelyn, and she gave us some really good travel tips. After a few very enjoyable hours, we said our goodbyes, and then Angie and I spent another couple of hours exploring the Yuyuan Bazaar, which is an absolutely fascinating place. It was packed solid, but we had a great time looking around at all of the arts and crafts there, there are some really talented and gifted people there, selling their wares for a pittance. We bought a few presents for friends and family while we were there.

Angie ended up getting quite sick over the next few days, just wanted to sleep all day, so we decided to forget about going to Suzhou and Huangshan as we had orginally planned, and stayed on in Shanghai for a further 2 days so that Angie could have time to rest and recover.

You can see photos of our time in Shanghai here

We caught a 1pm flight from Chengdu to Lhasa, and arrived at Lhasa Gongkar airport just before 3:30pm. Our Tibetan tour guide was there to greet us, holding a large sign in his hands with our name on it. He gave us each a ceremonial scarf to welcome us. Our guides name is Baima, he is Tibetan, and has never been out of Tibet. He speaks very good English, and is easy to understand. We meet our driver, Gosang, outside the airport. He doesn’t speak any English, but is very friendly and makes us feel welcome. Here is a picture of Gosang and Baima (click for a larger image):

We drive for nearly 2 hours to reach Lhasa, and the first things you notice are the clear blue sky with not a trace of smog to be seen anywhere. The mountains are desolate, but beautiful at the same time. Baima teaches us many things about Tibet during the drive. We stayed at the Thangka Hotel, right in the heart of Lhasa, just a 100 metre walk to Jokhang temple. It was quite a nice little 3 or 4 star hotel, in a fantastic location.

Getting into Tibet can be difficult, you need to have a permit, and the only way you can get a permit officially is to be part of a tour. A tour can be private though, as long as you have a full time tour guide and driver, a planned itinerary, and a hotel booked, they will issue you a permit. There are plenty of places around that will give you an unofficial permit so that you can travel in Tibet independently, but it can be a bit risky. Most of the time, the Chinese government turn a blind eye to this practice, but in times of political sensitivity, the clamp down hard. We were going to do it the unofficial way, but two weeks before departure, we decided not to risk it and organised a private tour through Travel Indochina in Australia. This turned out to be a wise choice, as the week that we got there, the Chinese Government decided to hold a major conference in Beijing. To top it all off, the current Dalai Lama was granted an award by the US Government, much to the ire of the Chinese. They clamped down hard on the unofficial permits, and a lot of people got left stranded in China, trying to get into Tibet and not being able to. We got our permit the night before our flight into Lhasa, and so we were OK. Our tour cost us $AUD1100 each, for 4 days, and included accomodation with breakfast, a full time tourguide and driver all to ourselves, and entry into all of the places we visited.

Lhasa is at 3700 metres altitude, and so altitude sickness is a concern. A small percentage of people are affected by it, so we went to the doctors before we left and got some Diamox, which is used to prevent altitude sickness. We started taking it the day before we arrived in Lhasa, but we stopped taking it when we arrived because we both felt OK, no headaches or anything. The only ill effect we felt was that on the first day, we found we were losing our breath very easily, and had to stop and have a rest every now and then. After the first day though, everything was OK. The high altitude can affect a lot of other things though. For example, water boils at just 88C at this altitude, so coffee and tea don’t taste the same. Even 2 minute noodles taste different. Rice is very hard to cook, the locals need to use a pressure cooker to do so. Hard drives in laptops are typically only rated to 3000 metres as they need air pressure to keep the heads off the spinning disk platters, although I used my little Sony Vaio laptop without ill effect.

Anyway, on the first day, I was feeling a lot better, but still very weak. We walked up to the Jokhang Temple, the most important temple to all Tibetans, and Baima took us for a tour. It’s amazing, but the smell of Yak Butter burning gets a bit much after a while. After a few hours walking around, listening to Baima explain what all of the statues mean etc (it’s fascinating) Baima said that we would go to the Potala Palace in the afternoon. I asked if we could see the Potala another day, as I was still feeling weak from being sick, and a bit short of breath, and I wan’t looking forward to climbing all those steps, but he had already booked us in. He said we could climb slowly, which was good, because I was really tired

Climbing the steps up to the top of the Potala Palace was hard work! We could only walk up 10-20 steps at a time, before we had to stop and catch our breath. Thankfully, although we were quick to lose our breath, we were equally quick to get it back again, and besides, it gave us a chance to stop and admire the views, which were spectacular

There were lots of Monks inside the palace, chanting and reading their scriptures. They all but ignored me completely, but as soon as the saw Angie, they would stop what they were doing and bow to her with hands held in a praying pose. Baima reckons that they thought she was from Burma, and looked familar to them. The Potala palace is just an amazing maze of rooms, full of history, full of spiritual meaning. I loved it, for me, it was what I was looking forward to the most on the whole trip. We took some amazing photos (see the link at the end of this page) and got some lifelong memories

The next day, we went up to the Drepung Monastery, one of the largest in Tibet. The views from the courtyard in the Monastery were just fantastic, and it was so peaceful and beautiful, that we ended up just sitting there relaxing in the peace a quiet for nearly an hour. The monastery itself was very beautiful, very colorful, and of course smelled of the obligatory Yak Butter burning. One poster over at the Lonely Planet Forums said that every time she ate Yak Butter, that she imagined that she was licking a monastery wall

We went for lunch at the Snowland Restaurant, just around the corner from the Hotel, they have a wide range of both western and Tibetan foods, as well as a few things from other places. Angie had the chicken tikka, but I had to try the Yak Pepper Steak, and I was not disappointed! It was just one of the best meals that I’ve had in a long time, just delicious. After lunch, we talk a walk around the Barkhor, which is the circuit that the pilgrims follow around the Jokhang Temple. It’s loaded with market stalls selling all sorts of souvenirs and nik-naks. It’s about a 1km circuit. We also visited the Muslim Quarter at the end of the barkhor

After that, we went to the Sera Monastery to have a look around and at 3pm, we watched the famous debating of the monks. This is a sight to be seen, it’s very dynamic, very passionate, and very loud. Well worth a visit, just sit back and watch.

Our last day in Lhasa was a fairly quiet one, we visited Chagpo Ri, and then went to the Lhasa Museum, which was very interesting. We had the whole afternoon to ourselves, so we walked around the Barkhor again, and talk a walk around Lhasa. It’s a really nice place, but the more you see, the more you wonder what it would been like before the Chinese arrived.

See our photos of Lhasa

We caught the plane from Xi’an to Chengdu, and when we arrived it was cool, wet and very smoggy. We booked into the Sheraton Hotel, which was just wonderful, we had a great room, and got a great deal. On the first afternoon, we went for a walk around town for a couple of hours to have a look around, and it looked very nice, very clean, very modern.

Electric Scooters rule the roads, and footpaths of Chengdu, they are just everywhere! You have to be looking around you the whole time, because they buzz around you from all directions.

We went back to the hotel after that because I wasn’t feeling too good and needed to rest. I ended up staying in bed for the next 2 days, not a good way to spend your holiday. On the 3rd day we were there, I was feeling a bit better, so we went for a walk in search of Sim’s Cozy Guesthouse so that we could organise a tour to go and see the Pandas at the Panda Research Base. It was very reasonable at 70RMB (just over $AUD10) per person.

We woke up early the next morning, and I felt the worst that I had, which was disappointing because I felt like I was getting better yesterday. We had to be at Sim’s by 7:30am to join up with our tour, so after breakfast, we caught a taxi over there. The panda research base is fantastic, and well worth a visit. The Pandas are amazing animals, and just so cute! I highly recommend this visit to anyone going to Chengdu.

In the afternoon, I decided I needed to find a western doctor to find out what was wrong with me. We found one, about a 20min taxi ride from the hotel, and went to see them. Turns out that I had acute bronchitis, so they gave me some antibiotics and some other stuff and sent me on my way.

Next morning, we were due to fly to Lhasa in Tibet. This is the thing that I had been looking forward to the most on this trip, and I was sooooo close to canceling the trip and just staying in Chengdu so that I could rest and get better, but at the last minute decided that we would go along. This turned out to be another great decision……

Click Here to see some photos of our time in Chengdu

When we arrived in Xi’an, it was cold and raining, and that’s pretty much how it stayed for the 3 days we were there. Xi’an is a funny town, the centre of town is surrounded by 14km of city walls that are fully restored, and that you are able to walk all the way around if you like. The city inside of the walls tends to be old and rundown a little, although there are plenty of new buildings around as well. Outside the city walls tends to be a bit newer and cleaner. Also, there were noticibly fewer people that spoke any English at all here, compared to say Beijing or Shenzhen. Nothing wrong with that of course, their national language is Mandarin, but it does make getting around as a tourist a little harder.

On the first day we were in town, we went for a walk into the centre of town to try and find something to eat. That’s tricky in itself, none of the resturaunts had any menus in English, and very few had pictures of the various dishes that you could point to. We were walking along the footpath, it was very crowded, and Angie felt someone pulling the zipper on her backpack down. She stopped straight away, but whoever it was was long gone. We panicked for a minute, thinking they might have gotten the camera or something, thankfully they didn’t get anything. It did teach us a valuable lesson though, we had been too complacent! Not any more…..

Anyway, the highlight of Xi’an, and the whole reason for us coming here in the first place, was to visit the Terracotta Warriors. What an amazing place! Back in 1976, a local farmer was digging a well on his farm, and ended up uncovering the most significant archaeological discovery of the 20th century. There has been much excavation since then, with thousands for warriors, horses and other artifacts having been found, but that’s still just the tip of the iceberg.

I started to feel pretty sick in Xi’an, running a fever, so we decided that we would make some alterations to our holiday plans. We had planned to spend 2 days in Chengdu and then 2 days in Jiuzhaigou, but decided that we would cancel the time in Jiuzhaigou, and spend 4 days in Chengdu resting so that I could get over my cold. This turned out to be a really good idea.

Check out our photos of Xi’an

While on holidays in China, we got to learn some of the road rules over here. Not that we ever drove over here of course, but these are just some of the observations that we have made:

• You must never, ever, ever, let anybody in, ever. Doesn’t matter if it is a pedestrian, another car, and ambulance, whatever, you must not let them in.
• You must never change down gears until you are right on the threshold of stalling. It doesn’t matter if you are going so slowly that you are holding up miles of traffic, that’s OK, just so long as you do not changes down gears
• There is only one item that is checked in a Chinese roadworthy examination, and that is that the horn functions correctly.
• If you are at a T intersection, and you need to turn into the crossing street, then you are free to do so at any time. Looking to see if anything is coming first is option, but is largely considered a sign of weakness. It is the obligation of the traffic driving along, minding their own business, to get out of the way from traffic charging at them from all directions

And the holiday finally begins! I’ve been planning this thing since about January 2007 when I booked the flights to and from China, and at last it’s here.

We woke up at 3am, and caught a taxi at 4:15am out to Avalon airport, ready for a 6am flight to Sydney. We were supposed to catch a flight from Sydney to Beijing at 10:30am, but they had problems with the plane, and so we didn’t leave Sydney until 2pm. Then after an 11 hour flight, and getting though customs, and then a half hour taxi ride to the hotel, we finally got to our room at around 1:30am Beijing time (3:30am Melbourne time). Angie had slept most of the flight, and was OK when we arrived, but as always, I couldn’t sleep on the plane, and so was pretty grumpy when we arrived, I was knackered! One thing that really annoyed me, the guy at Avalon airport was coughing quite a lot into is hands while he was handling our passports, and that couple of minutes would come to have a major impact on our holiday….

We stayed at the Hilton Hotel in Beijing, which was up to the usual high standards of the Hilton, much better than some of the so called 5 star hotels we’ve been to in the past.

On Tuesday morning, we asked the concierge for walking directions to the nearest subway station so that we could get into the centre of town. They couldn’t believe that we would even consider walking! The Chinese are funny like that, even our Chinese friends at home think we are very brave going to China by ourselves, they seem to think that China is a very dangerous place for foreigners. Our experience in China last year was exactly the opposite, and so far, this year has been the same. Sure, there are traps and dangers abound, but by applying a bit of common sense and awareness of your surroundings, you can avoid most of them.

The Chinese people, even in Beijing, seem to see very few foreigners (laowai), they just stare at you in amazement a lot of the time. Not that they intend to be rude of course, they are largely genuine, friendly and welcoming people. A smile will always be returned, and people will go out of their way to help you.

Anyway, on Tuesday, we went to Tiananmen Square and had a walk around. It was packed! October 1st is National Day in China, and most Chinese take the whole week off and go and visit all of the famous spots. The Chinese tourists outnumber the foreign tourists by about 1000:1. We walked all around Tiananmen Square (Quote from the Lonely Planet guide to China: It is illegal to ride your bicycle in Tiananmen Square, but apparently, tanks are OK) and then went across the the road to the Gate of Heavenly Peace (the big red building with the huge portrait of Chairman Mao that you will have seen on TV a hundred times). When you go through the gate, you can pay a 15 Yuan (about $2.30) entry fee to go up to the top for a view of Tiananmen Square, and in the opposite direction, the Forbidden City, which we did. We had to check our bags into the bag check though, because you can’t take bags up into the gate. when we came back down, we decided to walk around a little before we went and collected our bags, just in case there was somewhere else that we wanted to go that demanded that we check in our bags again. We walked through the second gate toward the Forbidden City with a huge stream of people, and then realised that we should have gotten our bags before doing that. We tried to turn around to go and get our bags, and were stopped by the police. They made us walk all the way out the rear exit, walk all the way around to the front, and back through the front gate again, a distance of about 3km. What’s worse, is that we had just 35 minutes to get back to the bagcheck before they closed, and about 1 million meandering Chinese tourists to get through. We *just* made it back in time, but it was pretty tough going. A bugger of an ending to an otherwise good day.
On Wednesday, we went on a private tour of the Great Wall, that I had organised in Australia. Our tour guide Picked us up at about 8:15am from the hotel in a taxi, and we drove about 90 minutes out of Beijing to Mutianyu, one of the restored sections of the wall. We spent about 2 hours walking along the wall, taking photos, soaking up the history. It’s an amazing place, and it was fantastic to finally see it up close. On the way back, we stopped by a very nice restaurant, and had a fantastic meal. On Wednesday night,sitting in the hotel, I started to get a deep chesty cough, no doubt in my mind a result of the guy in Avalon Airport handling our passports. Why can’t people with colds  just stay home and get better instead of  trying to be a hero and go back to work?

On Thursday, we went out to the Summer Palace. It was OK, but we were both a bit disappointed. It was a nice enough place, but it was just packed solid with Chinese tourists, so it was pretty hard to move around. We had a nice time, and we spend about 5 or 6 hours walking around, but we kept comparing it to the New Yaun Ming Palace that we visited in Shenzhen last year, it it kept falling short, despite the historical significance of the place. Maybe we would have enjoyed it more if there were less crowds?

Our final day in Beijing was spent doing the obligatory walk around The Forbidden City. It’s a pretty amazing place, but it is just so huge, that after half a day, it all starts to look the same. It was a great day though, we really enjoyed ourselves.

One final observation of Beijing, there seems to be a drastic over-abundance of very beautiful young women everywhere you go, they are just everywhere! All of the guys seem to be old and ugly, and the women are all young and beautiful, I just don’t understand how that works!!!!!

Check out some of our photos of Beijing

Well, I started Chinese (Mandarin) lessons today. It’s really hard! There are so many vowel sounds, it really hard to remember them all. I’m determined to learn some basics though, as it will help with our holiday this year. When we went to China last year, we found the language barrier difficult. We still had a great time, but it would have been easier if we could communicate better, so when we go back this year, I hope to be a little better prepared.

Today, I’m going to spend the day planning our holiday to China in October. We’ve got the whole month, so there will be plenty of time to have a look around. We’ve already booked our flights, we did that back in January just using some of the frequent flyer points that we had accumulated. We fly in and out of Beijing, now we just need to figure out what to do while we are there. At this stage, we are planning on sticking to a triangle laid out by Beijing, Shanghai and Xian, but we will see. I don’t want to stick to just the cities, I’d like to be able to see some of the country as well.

On another, related note, I start Chinese lessons at the local TAFE this Wednesday!