Having been in Japan where they wash their bum after every toilet stop and have fake water sounds to cover up your business noise, coming to China was expected to be a bit of a culture shock.
Tag: China2012
4 August – Black Dragon Pool and Driving to Dali
Later start today, but woken early by the normal mass exodus of tourists off on their coaches. I braved breakfast on the roof. It was the same hotel in Lijiang as last time. The roof breakfast set up was really quite strange. Small table and chairs as if we were at primary school. Then at…
Rant #2 – Cha Hua Hotel, Dali
Yuck. We just checked into our hotel in Dali, China and it is horrible. It is our first night in accommodation whilst on this tour organised by a travel agent. The room is really dirty. The toilet doesn’t flush. The bathroom is disgusting. The shower is a joke. They have provided us with around 8…
Linz’s First blog
We found WiFi tonight in a bar in Shangri-La old town. We’re now at the end of our 3rd day on the tour in rural-ish China. The countryside is amazing, particularly today, but even these small ‘towns’ are more like cities-probably bigger than Leeds, just made very recently in the ‘old style’ to attract tourists-mostly…
3 August – Shangri La and sunburn
Shangri La, on the tibetan plateau at a height of 3500m above sea level. Highest I’ve ever slept. Pretty cool. Strange dreams though. Early start woken by some one knocking on the door at 6.30am. Presume they were on another tour, or they were annoyed at being woken to get on their bus so decided…
2 August – Tiger Leaping gorge, the Yangtze and Shangri La
Up early for an 8am leave and Linz has a cold shower, which I decided to skip. Then she goes to breakfast, on the roof, in the rain, which I also miss as my tummy is still playing up. Instead I spend time trying to make it look like I have had a shower when…
1 August – One week left
Today it mostly rained. But it was OK. We drove from Dali to Lijiang and then visited the old town which we both really liked. Then we were taken to a lake, and asked to pay a lot of money to either walk near the lake, ride horses or go on boats. We said no to…
30 July – my first sleeper train
So. Hmmmm. Well. We are on a tour organised by a travel agent. Stage one of the tour involves an over night train to Dali from Kunming. I’ve never been on a sleeper train and I was naively very excited. Turns out it’s a bit like that nuclear bunker in Switzerland that we “slept” in that…
29 July – Unsuitable clothing
First Published – 29 July There is lots of unsuitable clothing worn here. Very high heels, worn at all times including when walking for hours. They also seem to like layers upon layers of lace and on Sunday, they seem to wear a lot of white and cream dresses which are a bit bridal-esque. The…
29 July – Exploring Chengdu
First Published 28th July Day 3 here and we headed out to see what Chengdu had to offer, and walked towards Renmin park. It was a nice park, if a little noisy. But then that’s all relative, China is an inordinately noisy place. In the park there were people dancing, mainly middle aged ladies with…
28 July – Du Fu’s thatched cottage
Du Fu was a poet, he lived around 750AD. Apparently he lived in a cottage in west Chengdu, for 5 years. We were told that we absolutely had to visit his house, his actual house from 1200 years ago. Hmmmn. We in fact visited a replica cottage. This cottage may (or may not) have been…
28 July – Attempting to shop
Stopping in China is over whelming! The choices are so numerous that I am put off before I even get started. Each department store is a giant mass of choices. Then there are numerous department stores to chose from which makes things even worse. This is a country that is totally obsessed with shopping. In…
EasterlyMoves 