Laos & Winding Roads

As we crossed no man’s land between China & Laos the building we thought was going to be the Laos checkpoint turned out to be some Chinese administration block, so with our full backpacks we toddled on for another ten minutes along a dusty path in the blazing sun before jumping into a Tuk-Tuk with Pete and Penny the couple we had met just before the Chinese border on the last bus. The Laos checkpoint was only just another few minutes down the path and as we approached we could see people pushing and shoving trying to get their passports through a small hole in the window.

After a slightly protracted process of form-filling and exchanging of documents we managed to get through to the Laos side, where we hoped we could get a bus or some form of transport to Luang Nam Tha. The only bus there when we arrived was already full, so we asked a Tuk-Tuk driver how much to Luang Nam Tha, when he came back with a price that was almost four times the price of the bus we just laughed and decided to have a seat in a small shed next to the crossing that was selling food and our first sighting of the world famous in SE Asia, Beer Laos.

We spent a relaxing half hour sipping Beer Laos and exchanging stories and tales with Pete and Penny. It’s always quite interesting to meet someone who can talk as much as Joanne, and Pete could certainly do that but it was great fun listening to someone almost as passionate about music and football as myself. Pete & Penny have a had few articles printed in Beach Boys fanzines over the last few years as well as having God Only Knows played at their wedding, the song we also had as our first dance at our wedding reception.

We also spoke at length about George Best who we had just found out had been put back on a life support system, Pete talked fondly about seeing him in the late 60’s even though he was a Chelsea supporter. Pete was always quick to point out that he’s old Chelsea and doesn’t feel the same passion for his team now that Abramovich has poured his millions in, some people are never happy as I knew hundreds of other fans who would loved to have millions poured into their clubs but I understand where he‘s coming from.

We were soon joined by another customer who promptly knocked the condiments flying from the surrounding tables as he drunkenly bumped across the room offering us some suspect lethal concoction that you could smell from a good ten yards. We all declined his tipple but we all greatly admired his natty peaked balaclava before he was ushered away by the staff who seemed deeply offended by his antics, but the guy was just trying to be friendly.


Another Tuk-Tuk driver approached us and before we could even arrange a price Pete was convinced he wanted to go with this guy as he thought he had a real friendly Spanish looking face. Well Pete got his way as the driver gave us a price cheaper than the bus and was willing to leave in the next five minutes. After getting our rucksacks on the roof we piled into the back of the Tuk-Tuk, at the same time our drunken friend appeared and started loading the back with numerous sacks and boxes. He was about to get in the back when the driver shepherded him into the front passenger seat away from the rest of his passengers.


The journey flew in as we had a good laugh in the back, bumping along dusty tracks and through some beautiful tiny villages. By the time we got to Luang Nam Tha our hair was matted and clothes had turned a sandy/brown colour but we were thankful to get there in one piece and to have finally stopped moving. As we left the bus station we noticed two large guesthouses, then an American shouted from one of the balconies saying that this one better as it had hot showers. So we headed to Cha Rueh Sin Guest house and found out that you could get an en-suite double room with hot water and a balcony for 3 US$, we could have went for the 2 US$ with shared bathroom but 57p for your own bathroom doesn’t seem that high a price.

Laos never really existed as a country until the French, British, Chinese and Siamese drew a line round it, even then the French managed to spell the name wrong and add the letter s to the end. Over the last few years I’ve heard it pronounced so many ways but I think it’s low as in allow or rhyming with the bow of a boat. The country was under French control until 1953 when full sovereignty was handed back but this was followed by 20 years of chaos as multiple parties split into two factions. The Pathet Lao where supported by the Soviets, Chinese and Vietnamese and the right wing elite by the US who feared another country toppling to Communism in their Asian domino theory. From 1965 to 1973 the US devastated eastern and north-eastern Laos with non-stop carpet bombing trying to flush out the North Vietnamese troops.

In 1973 the US pulled out and the country divided into Pathet Lao and non-Pathet Lao but within two years the Communists had taken over and the Lao People’s Democratic Republic came into existence under the leadership of Kaysone Phomvihan. Today Laos has softened is socialist principles and allows private enterprise and foreign investment and the US has taken Laos off it’s blacklist that contains Cuba and North Korea. Curfews still exist with most bars and hotels closed by 11:30pm and everywhere you go you will see the Laos national flag along side Red flags with the hammer and sickle. At night music and news are piped onto the streets via large speakers attached to the street lights, not knowing much of the language meant that we didn’t get indoctrinated. The music sounded as if it was being played through an old analogue delay unit as it’s echo bounced off the surrounding buildings to give a really weird effect not heard since Static ran out of ideas and started messing about with gadgets.

Luang Nam Tha has about 10 streets so after a quick shower we headed out in search of food, we never had any breakfast or lunch so by the time we picked a restaurant I was feeling mighty peckish. Penny and Pete joined us and after a slight delay in ordering since a 10 year old boy was left in charge of the restaurant we tucked into some ok rice dishes. After a few more drinks we were joined by Camilla and Michael the Czech couple who also arrived in town today before we all headed to the Panda Restaurant which seemed to be the in-place as we never seen the place less than full. We said our good-byes to everybody as Pete & Penny were moving on early the next morning and Mikael & Camilla where heading off on a two day trek. On this trip you say good-bye to many people but so many times you bump into familiar faces further down the line.


Along with some stunning architecture one of the great things about the French being in South East Asia is that you’re never too far away from some outstanding fresh baguettes. So for breakfast it was a great cheese and ham baguettes washed down with some truly disgusting Lao coffee and condensed milk, Joanne got off lightly with a papaya fruit yoghurt shake. It was literally a breath of fresh air being in Laos after the smoggy Chinese cities and great to have a bit of sun on our faces for a few hours.

We had decided to stay an extra day in Luang Nam Tha and have a wander about the town, which we managed in about 40 minutes and that was the long way round. After lunch we ventured out again and found a nice spot to sit and chill out, Joanne got out the sketch pad & pencils we had bought in China while I caught up with some of the blogger on the laptop. After another stroll we bumped into Camilla who told us that they had to cancel their trek as both her and Michael had caught a bad cold and didn’t feel that a two day trek into the mountains would be the best for them. That night we had dinner in the Panda restaurant before the two Czechs joined us for a drink and we talked about their time in China and being brought up in the Czech Republic before the Velvet Revolution and the changes afterwards.

Next morning we crossed the road to the bus station at about 7:40am to book our seats for our next journey south to Luang Prabang, which we managed without too much of a problem or so it seemed. Once our rucksacks where hoisted onto the roof of what looked like the bus from The Beatles - Magical Mystery Tour, we climbed over a dozen or so sacks of rice that filled the aisle for the first two or three rows and made our way to the back of the bus. We soon realised that we had been sold seats 44 & 45 of a 44 seater bus. After a few minutes trying to explain this to the driver he came back up to the back of the bus with a small plastic stool and told me to sit in the aisle. When the conductress came on to check tickets I asked for a discount because I had paid for a seat and after trying to pretend to not understand me she eventually grudgingly handed over a 5,000 kip note (27p), to which I replied thank you very much that won’t even get me a bottle of beer.


The bus was over an hour late in leaving and before we left I was joined with another 10 plastic seat aisle hoppers on the seriously over crowded bus. When we eventually pulled out of the bus station at about 9am we hadn’t even left the town when we stopped for the driver’s assistant to get cigarettes from a stall two streets from the station. This was to be the norm and we stopped seven to eight times in the first hour for various reasons. Joanne had ended up sitting beside Donna who was from Wales and both of them had a good moan to each other about the bus and the constant stops while I decided to try and put myself into a trance and block out the uncomfortable bus journey by playing my MP3 player as loud as possible. The road was never straighter than two bus lengths and I had to straddle my plastic seat like a rhinestone cowboy at every bend or else I would end up in the lap of two old Lao’s ladies or two grumpy German guys.

It was a great shame that the bus was so slow and uncomfortable because we passed some glorious scenery and hundreds of little hill villages which would have been great to spend a few hours in and wander about taking photos. At one point we passed what looked like an over turned bus and we saw quite a few westerners walking about dazed with numerous cuts, there was also a local lady lying next to the road with blood pouring from her leg, our bus stopped for a few minutes but we didn’t find out what happened or take anyone on board. We stopped soon afterwards for lunch break at Udommxai and we saw some ambulances heading back in the direction we came from. After lunch I had a look at the map and though we had been on the bus for over four hours we had travelled virtually no distance at all.


The journey went on in the same fashion with numerous stops, at one point we had to get off the bus and show our passports to some teenager in a big green uniform. Twenty minutes further down the road another kid in ill-fitting garb came on to bus to look at our passports before he waved us on. Our next stop might be our most bizarre yet as the driver pulls over after seeing some urchins standing by the side of the road. After a few minutes the driver and his side kick return to the bus after buying a chicken, the kids then approached us offering to sell us rats and mice through the windows of the bus.


Another small village we passed was having a massive party with a few hundred people, I’m not sure if it was a wedding or some festival. In the corner of the garden was a massive Jamaican style sound system with speakers teetering high above the crowd, one on top of each other and only being held together by the smallest of ropes. The Laos girls looked right good on the dance floor, dancing to electro pop like robots from 1984.

Our supposed arrival time of 4pm came and went as day became night and any chances of having a leisurely Saturday night in Luang Prabang were fading fast. At one stop Donna had asked the driver what time did he expect us to arrive, when he said 8pm we didn’t know if he was joking or not but when we finally arrived we pulled into the Luang Prabang it was 8pm precisely as if every stop was a planned to perfection throughout the day. I don’t think I will ever be able to look at plastic seat again without thinking about my journey from Luang Nam Tha to Luang Prabang.

Chinese Hit Parade

1. Spitting on the Duck in the Bay - Otis Redding
2. Everybody's Smokin' - Nillson
3. Wouldn't it be Rice - The Beach Boys
4. Another Brick in the Great Wall - Pink Floyd
5. The Time is Mao - Moloko
6. This Town ain’t Big Enough for the 2 Million of Us - Sparks
7. Don’t Stand So Close to Me - The Police
8. Do You Really Want to Hurt Me? - Cultural Revolution Club
9. Red Army Dreamers - Kate Bush
10. Take me to the Yangzi River - Al Green

Best Things to Do & See

The Great Wall of China
Forbidden City
Pandas (Chengdu)
Three Gorges (Yangzi River)
The Terracotta Warriors
Urban Planning Exhibition (Shanghai)
Jinmao Tower (for Cocktails)


Things We Will Miss about China

Hustle & Bustle
Street Food (esp. Xian)
Cheap Beer
Overnight Sleeper Trains
Peking Duck
Haggling
Spicy Food (Chris)
Friendly People
Cheap DVD’s
Dave & Ruth

Things we won't miss about China

Spitting in the Street
Clearing Nostrils in the Street
Smelly Toilets
Being Stared at
Rip Off Taxi Drivers
Hot Pot
Pushing & Shoving
Bad Roads
Spicy Food (Joanne)
Internet Restrictions
No Pedestrians Right of Way

Minging Mengla's Bus Blues

We arrived at the bus station with an hour to spare before our bus was due to depart, after half an hour the bus driver came over and told us to go to the bus. So after dumping our bags we went on and were surprised to see that instead of seats there were actually beds on the bus (we were later told that many people call these coffin buses). About 2 seconds onto the bus we were hit by the smell of disgustingly sweaty feet we’re not sure if it was due to cheap plastic shoes or the fact that the guy hadn’t washed his socks in weeks but odour eaters were definitely required.

We were then confused when the ticket inspector took us to the back and told us to go on the top where there were beds for 5 people as we had booked lower beds. We went up anyway and thought that he might be being nice to us “westerners” and that we might be the only ones there. Then another western couple came on and he told them to get up beside us, they refused and went and sat down on their allocated seat numbers. So we decided to do the same but unfortunately someone was on one of our beds so Chris waited until he left the bus and moved his things off. Then the ticket inspector came back on and after much gesticulating he realised that he had been found out and just shrugged his shoulders in amusement at us.


Well 4 o’clock came and went and we were told that the bus wouldn’t be leaving until 5pm (two buses were being put into one). So a little after 5 we left the bus station and headed into the Kunming’s rush hour with the traffic clearing a little as we headed onto the motorway. For about 45 minutes we seemed to be moving along nicely and then we pulled over at a service station for petrol. Well bearing in mind the bureaucracy to get a sachet of coffee it took us over an hour to get petrol and this was after skipping the queue of over 30 articulated lorry’s in front of us. Then we were on our way again only to stop 15 minutes later for 30 minutes for a food break and this was just the start of our journey. The new Star Wars DVD came on and at first we could hear it in English then came the Chinese dubbing over the English speaking so you couldn't really hear either. So on and on it went with the constant stop starting during the night (we reckon we must have stopped for over 6 hours!!) with us having very little sleep due to works being carried out on the road after the military checkpoint.

One of the amazing things about China is that they must currently be working on adding millions of miles of roads to their network. Everywhere we were driving through had huge parts of the landscape being worked upon with bridge supports being put and excavations of where the road should be. The only thing was that they didn’t start in one area and finish that first (that would make too much sense), every area was working on their bit and none of it appeared to be finished or much likely hood of it being done in the next year!!

We arrived at the bus station in Jinghong with all the Chinese people leaving the bus and were told by the bus driver we would leave “soon”. By this point we should have been at our final destination over 3 hours before and then the driver shouted at us to get off. He then pointed to a minibus which was full of the Chinese laughing at us with their bags on their seats and not enough space for all of us. They took over half an hour to reorganise the baggage and then magically produced half seats for us to sit on - surprise, surprise Chris and I were the only two westerners who had to sit on these and with Chris’s seat being broken my knees were being battered at every bump in the road (of which there were plenty).

We were told that the trip would take 2 hours but 4 hours later we arrived in Mengla, tired and dusty from our trip. We had two options either to try and make it to the border (which would have been extremely tight) or stay a night in Mengla. We decided to stay the night and went with the Czech couple (Michael & Camilla) we met on the bus to a guesthouse just down the road and had our bags carried for 2 minutes by a tuk-tuk driver. This was our cheapest accommodation yet at under 3 quid for an en-suite room with TV (although we didn’t manage to get a western toilet!). We hadn’t bought that much food for the journey and were both starving as we expected to arrive in Mengla at 5.30am so we had a quick meal in a little place next door to the hotel.

9am the following morning we decided to get a minibus to Mohan (the Chinese border) and gave our bags to the same tuk-tuk driver to take to the bus station. At every opportunity over the last 24 hours this guy asked us whether or not we wanted to change money which we politely declined. So onto a minibus we went and we were feeling ok as we left the bus station since the bus wasn’t as full as yesterday until we pulled outside of the station the bus stopped and 6 people got in (backhanders to the driver!). There was still plenty of room and we went on our merry way stopping to let people on and off during the hour and a half journey.

The bus juddered to a halt at a road block by one military guy as road works were being carried out just ahead of us. So we waited and waited and after about half an hour the driver told us to get off this bus and go onto another slightly larger bus (better than the one we were on) and we waited again. A couple from London came on Pete and Penny and started to chat with us which whiled away some time and then all of a sudden we were off and back on our way.

We arrived at the Chinese border control filled out our exit form, waited to be stamped out and were told several times by the guard to line up (I actually think he wanted us to stop talking!). So we eventually got our passports stamped and decided to walk towards what we thought was the Laos border control just across the road.

Kunming No.9 Your Times Up

Once we dragged ourselves from the train we we’re so relieved to see a beautiful blue sky, since it seemed so nice we decided to just walk the 2 or 3kms to our hostel. Almost immediately after leaving the station we realised that Kunming was a lot more laid back than Shanghai and most other Chinese cities, we didn’t have to run the gauntlet of taxi drivers, hotel reps and various other touts while shielding our ears from incessant battle between car horns & bicycle bells and were left quietly to meander our way through the streets to the hostel.

We had a booked the hostel a few days earlier over the net mainly just because of the name, it did also had quite a few good reviews. When we arrived at The Hump hostel, the reception/bar was being used for a press conference, but we still managed to get booked in fairly quickly. I’m not sure exactly what the press conference was for but it was something to do with the local indigenous tribes as amongst the journalists and cameramen were many young women and men wearing traditional costumes.


After unpacking and having a shower to wash the two days of train from ourselves we headed to the Laos consulate to see if we could get a Visa for the following week. It took nothing more than filling in a few forms, leaving a sizable amount of cash & our passports to secure our Laos visas and if we returned in three days they might even give us back our passports. We then wandered to the University district to try and find an English bookshop, we had been trying to get the Lonely Planet’s South East Asia on Shoestring book for a few weeks now without too much success. On the way we passed lots of new skyscrapers and fancy shopping malls, Kunming was definitely not being left out of China’s boom time.


Around the university there were plenty of interesting shops selling more than just your usual tack that you find in most of China’s shops; fancy stationers, 60’s Beat Writers Book Shop, Laid back coffee houses and numerous boutiques selling smart original clothing. We also found the bookshop and to Joanne’s great delight we managed to pick up the book we had been trying to find since Beijing which she greeted with a loud “Wooohhhooooo” in the middle of the shop.

On our way back to the hostel we passed by Pizza Hut and all the staff inside were wearing Father Christmas outfits and I’m sure we could hear Noddie Holder & the rest of Slade shouting their way through “I wish it could be Christmas everyday”. This really caught us by surprise as it was the first time Christmas had wandered under our radar, even though it was mid-November. I remember wandering down Sauchiehall Street one lunchtime last October and I nearly screamed out in frustration as I saw Marks & Spencer’s setting up their Christmas window displays, but I’m sure it will be a lot worse in Scotland than it will be for us in China.

Back at the Hostel we sat and had a beer in the roof garden and watched the locals flying kites and going about their business as the sun set over the city. The view from the Hostel was really good with two strikingly lit large ornamental gates set in a pedestrian area where quite a few stalls were being set up for a small night market. We also got chatting to a retired Austrian called Gunter who had also being travelling around China for the last six weeks but mainly in the west of China. That night we had dinner in the Brother Jiang restaurant down stairs from the hostel, nearly every street had a Brother Jiang and they always seemed quite busy. The Kunming district is famous for it’s across the bridge noodles but we didn’t really notice the difference from the other noodles we had in other parts of the country.


Next morning we caught up with all our internet duties, before heading down to the local markets. This is where we found our latest great street food, large slices of flat bread that tasted like a weird hybrid of potato scone & nan bread with sesame seeds & chives sprinkled over the top - a definite hit on the old taste buds. The market seemed to a have millions of stalls selling cheap shoes, I’m sure there might have been enough to cover every foot in the country. We also seen a whole street selling Christmas & New Year decorations, but every stall sold exactly the same gear I’m not sure if this is some Communist ideal about equality for the masses.

Every town or city in China had it’s own unique things that we will remember it for and Kunming is no different. On arriving we noticed that many of the female cyclists in town like to wear the type of sun visor that were all the rage for two weeks in the summer of 77 by wannabe tennis stars and bad poker players. Another stand out for Kunming was that many of the shops had MC’s outside extolling the value and street worthiness of the goods inside, many of these had more echo & delay effects than the pioneering 70’s Jamaican Dub DJ’s like U-Roy and Big Youth. We stood outside Ming Lee’s Emporium of Underwear with our Mandarin Book to try and translate some of the rhymes that the MC was belting out to the passers by, here’s some very rough translations.

Wake the town and tell the people
Ming Lee’s Shop is so unbeatable

Watch how the Dance floor Rocks
When you are wearing our Socks

Don’t you fret there will be no more frights
While you are wearing Ming Lee’s tights

No more shockings or mockings
You’ll look great in our stockings

No need to Travel Wide and Far
In search for the Kings of Bra

No need for a Blessed Rosary
With our splendid Hosiery

When wearing trousers, You’ll be fine
‘Cos you’ll never see a knicker line

SSSShhhhaaaabbbbbaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!


Another thing we haven’t really mentioned about China is the hundreds of massive one-stop shop Wedding Megaplexes which must have about 50 staff for every customer and also has more frilly dresses than you would find at a Can Can convention on the Moulin Rouge.


Saturday lunch time we checked out of The Hump so that we could move to the Hotel Gandu to watch the Celtic game that night. The hotel wasn’t on the map so we asked one of the staff from the Hump to write the name of the street in Mandarin so we could show a taxi driver. After a while he eventually gave us a bit of paper back with something written on it but we weren’t convinced it was the right thing as he kept going on about a number 26 bus.

We ventured out to the taxi rank just outside the hostel and showed the bit of paper to the taxi driver, she seemed to know where to go. After about 15 minutes she stopped at a busy cross-section and told us this was where the note said to let us off, we then tried to ask her where the hotel was but this wasn’t getting much response. Next thing she’s on the mobile and then she says she now knows, and takes off for another 5 minutes drive. Half way back along the road we stop outside the Police station and she thinks this is where we want. After another 5 minutes discussion and another phone call we’re heading back to the first place she tried to drop us off but this time she carries on another few minutes and we see the hotel. I’m not sure how she didn’t know it as it’s the biggest place in the area and had about 40 taxis outside it.

Once in the room we chilled out for a bit and watched BBC World for a bit, the first time we had seen any English speaking news channels since leaving Sydney over 9 weeks before hand. In the afternoon we wandered the streets surrounding the hotel to pick up some lunch, it was obvious that tourists don’t usually come to this part of the city as we had more than our usual stares. Mothers were picking up their kids and pointing at us and getting their kids to wave at the two weird westerners wandering about.

We wandered into a supermarket to pick up some things, which was bit more difficult than you would expect. At one counter we picked up some coffee sachets and we then had to wait for the counter girl to write out a receipt in triplicate so that we could pay for the coffee at the checkout, this happened at three other counters on our way round the shop. A job that should have taken 5 minutes turned into a half hour marathon of bureaucracy, but I suppose it kept another 5 or 6 people in jobs.

We found a small restaurant and with the aid of the mandarin book and some pointing we both had some great food and few beers for under 3 UK pounds. That night we sipped some beers while watching the game and chilled out in the comfortable room, we never did get round to using the swimming pool, billiards room or sip cocktails in any of it‘s numerous bars. The following day we didn’t do too much but use the internet and watch some movies.

After getting some dinner at the same place the night before we decided to get our haircut and we had noticed quite a popular place on the way to the restaurant. Joanne hadn’t had her hair cut since Mexico when they burnt her hair with too much chemicals and quite naturally was a bit apprehensive. Things got off to a good start when we both got a 15 minute head massage, Joanne even got her back prodded and slapped for an extra 10 minutes. We both survived without any disasters and were quite pleased for the whole experience only cost 20 Yuan which was about 1 pound fifty.

On Monday we booked back into the Hump for a night, picked up our passports and visas from the Laos consulate and we also managed to book two bus tickets to Mengla (the nearest town to the Laos Border) for the following afternoon. We also picked up quite a few cheap DVDs to watch on the laptop as this was probably going to be our last chance of cheap counterfeit goods in China. Lots of new signs and banners had been put up around promoting the City, one we noticed was “Everyday is Spring in Kunming” which was a lie as it was absolutely freezing. By this point we really did want to head to South East Asia and get some heat back into our bones and some sunshine on our faces. Out of the six weeks in China we were probably lucky to have 5 or 6 days of blue sky in total. We didn’t bother leaving the hostel that night and once again had a few beers and dinner in this lively place.


Next day we loaded up on the potato scone / nan bread hybrid and made our way to the bus station for our overnight trip south to Mengla and then hopefully a short hop skip and jump over the border to Laos

Shanghai Sniffles

We arrived in Shanghai and managed to make our way across two subway lines to the Captain’s Hostel half a block from the bund without any problem well apart from me nearly being hit by a motor bike!! The Bund is where all the large European companies had their headquarters in the early part of the 20th century. We had tried to find some cheap accommodation in Shanghai but to be honest non was to be had so we decided to stay in a dorm and after sharing with Ruth and Dave it couldn’t be that bad. So we all ended up in the same room which was huge with lockers large enough to store our bags. After our last few days we were all starving and in need for a gentle reminder of what western food could taste like so we all went to Ruzzi’s Pizza for a set lunch before doing some admin on the net.


We all met up later on and headed to the rooftop bar which gave an excellent view of the skyline across Pudong but the beers were a bit steep but well worth for the view. We had decided (or rather Ruth’s continuous talk about food led us to decide) that that night we would do a full blow out and head to the French Concession (or now known as the French Connection after Ruth‘s little slip up) to the Indian Kitchen. So another couple of metros across the city led us to a lovely Indian restaurant for some good Indian fayre but still not as great as the New Annan (that delightful place across from our old flat). Anyways after dinner we decided to hit one of the main bar areas - maybe not the best idea after an Indian but we all reckoned that we had room for a couple of beers.

So we wandered up to Maoming Nanlu which had a few bars for “gentlemen” and then a few others which we deemed were safe enough for us ladies. Our choice was the Blue Frog and we sat on the bar stools people watching and enjoying the enormous glasses of beer - I almost needed two hands to lift mine. Several of these later we realised that despite our best intentions it was now 12 midnight and we still had to look at getting a taxi home. We all got back in one piece despite a couple of wrong turnings by the taxi driver.

Well the next day was Wednesday 9th September and for those of you who didn’t know there was an Old Firm game (Celtic vs. Rangers) for one of the quarter finals of the League Cup. So being the ever devoted wife we had booked a hotel the day before which had internet access in the room for one night to allow my delightful husband the pleasure of watching the match live on Celtic Channel 67.We first of all had to walk for over an hour to find the place and then check that the internet actually worked - bonus it did. We then headed back and found a little market with lots of Cultural Revolution things and wandered around the main shopping street for a bit. We had dinner at a small café which had an English menu (yippee) and at 2 quid for a meal for 2 and 2 big beers we really couldn’t complain.


Then it was off back to the hotel. Now the game was on at 8pm UK time but in Shanghai it was 4am in the morning and Chris in his wisdom decided that he would stay up and take full advantage of the internet. Half asleep I thought we had a bird loose in the room as I heard flapping sounds, bleary eyed I spotted Chris flapping his arms as if he wanted to take off and raising one hand in the air (I figured Celtic had scored). In case you didn’t know the result well Rangers were knocked out of the cup after Celtic winning 2-0 going on 6-0 or so Chris said anyway.

The following morning we both were just a little tired and after getting back to the hostel we were put in a different room from Dave & Ruth which had 10 beds and 7 rather smelly young guys. It was raining and Chris fell asleep with a huge grin on his face to catch up on some 'well earned rest'.

We met up with Ruth & Dave in the downstairs foyer at 7pm well the beers were only 70p down there and after a couple of these we headed for dinner in the same place we ate the night before and had another cheap meal and drinks. Due to the rain we decided to head back to the hostel foyer and have a few more beers. Around 1ish (we think) we headed to bed - only to find that in our room we had a snorer who sounded more like a lion roaring and lucky me I had the bed next to him.

On Friday 11 November we managed to get a room swap - whether this was a good idea or not who knows but at least it didn’t smell as bad as the now alcohol filled room that we were in. We managed a short trip to the post office and got a box sent without too much hassle and then decided to head to the Urban Planning Exhibition.
Most of the ground floor was covered up for a Mercedes Benz exhibition which was due to open any day and due to the crowds of tour buses we skipped the next floor and headed straight to the 2nd floor which had a scale model of Shanghai. This was fantastic and showed how far the city stretched with hundreds upon hundreds of skyscrapers in every direction.


We then walked around reading about how Shanghai will look in the future (well they hope to have it all be completed by the Shanghai Expo in 2010). Pictures show how the area looks now and how it will look when completed and explain the benefits of this for the Chinese people, apparently Chinese people do not own the land and are just lease holders which can be withdrawn at any time. Hence the reason for thousands of homes being bulldozed with the occupants left looking for accommodation elsewhere, although if you believe all the descriptions in the exhibition the vast majority are re-housed in much better housing (but some of the picture of the new houses showed the electrics hanging out of the wal as the family’s moved in!!). Several areas will become eco friendly and the only industries allowed will be non-polluting industries (the polluting ones will be in another area) with bungalow type houses and plenty of gardens/greenery.

When you see the bigger picture it is absolutely amazing that a country can do this amount of demolition and building as quickly as it does and with the foresight to put the airport next to the docks and construction of several additional metro lines is under way to improve the overall transport of the city.

The main highlight for me though was the 360 degrees cinematic room which took you on a flying journey of how the ‘new’ Shanghai will look - this was really good despite us both feeling a little travel sick in the place. We also got to see how the old Shanghai looked with another film but this was pretty rank so we left without seeing all of it.


This was Dave & Ruth’s last night so we what better way to start the evening than have a cocktail on the 87th floor in the Hyatt Hotel in the Jinmao Tower. The 88th floor is the tower for viewing across the whole of Shanghai. So we wandered down in our glad rags and rain coats and headed into 3 different lifts to get to Cloud 9 bar. This building is the tallest in China and the 4th tallest in the world and stands at 420.5m.




We managed to get a seat at the window and fortunately for us we were early enough to miss the minimum tab of 9 quid per person. We all ordered cocktails although Dave’s being a ginger tea came in a tin mug whilst the rest of us sipped ours out off proper cocktail glasses and we all ate delicious hot coated peanuts. At first we could see very little due to the mist and the rain but someone was looking out for us, as the mist lifted and we could see quite a distance down the Bund and the Pearl Sky Tower.


We headed out to meet up with Chris (a friend of Dave and Ruth‘s) and once we got there we were taken in a taxi to a little restaurant and a couple of Chris’s friends came too. All of these guys have been learning Mandarin for a while now and were ordering us some food when in pops a lady who could speak English and asked if she could help. She then proceeded to tell them the specialities (despite the guys having already ordered several dishes) one of which was the squashed chicken. When asked was it run over by a car she laughed and replied “No it was hit by a hammer!”. So we had to have some of that as well. The food in this place was fantastic:- mashed potato with aubergines and minced meat (almost like a shepherds pie), spicy beef, pork and the best of all was the chicken which was put into a square dish and was believe it or not completely flat.

So after stuffing our faces we headed to the Time Passage bar. This was supposedly one of the oldest bars in Shanghai and we soon realised that how quickly things change round here as it was only eleven years old. The bar was full of expats and wasn’t too expensive for Shanghai standards and we sat and listened to a band covering Oasis, The Eagles and any other requests or sing a longs on the mike by the audience. We had a few more beers before heading back to the hostel and the beer monster (Ruth) had to have another beer (this wasn’t that bad an idea for me as I wanted to phone home and wish my sister Christine a Happy Birthday) but none of really had the energy to finish them.

On the Saturday we all met and had our last breakfast together before Chris and I walked along the Bund with some sunshine in the sky - we couldn’t believe our luck.
We strolled in amongst the locals taking some pictures of the Pearl Sky Tower and the Bund which has buildings that would not be out of place in any big European City. After saying our farewells to Dave and Ruth we had a quick meal before heading back to the hostel as we were both suffering miserably from a cold.

We were up earlyish on the Sunday and headed towards the old town and the antique market. We thought it was some distance away but in reality it wasn’t that far although the old town was actually fairly new and the antique shops all sold similar trinkets. So we wandered back to a market we stumbled on a few days earlier and Chris haggled for a Cultural Revolution figurine, with a young woman with her hand in the air, the price actually started off much cheaper than we expected.

We were both feeling a little tired and rough after being woken up the previous night several times by an inconsiderate door slamming American couple and we were also suffering from a cold so we headed back to the hostel to chill out before heading along the Pudong and the Bund for some night time pictures. This place was still really busy and a couple of women were there with their kids, when their husbands showed up they stopped first of all to admire the camera (they had their faces in the lens looking at it) and then asked could they take a picture of me with their wives and kids so I happily obliged.


Monday was a bit of a wasted day as we tried to arrange a flight to Bangkok from Hong Kong from British Airways, to cut a long story short after 3 hours of waiting we asked for our tickets back. We then decided to head overland towards Kunming (quite near the Laos border) which was our original plan. It was to be a 44 hour train journey and we managed to book our tickets for Tuesday the following day. Both of us were still loaded with the cold and thought that maybe two days travelling on a train would allow us to do nothing and get rid of it. Our other options were to stop somewhere after 12 hours or 30 hours so the whole hog was decided on.

It was both my parents birthday’s over the next couple of days and since we were travelling I decided to phone them, so we sat in the foyer until we could phone home, we met up with another Glaswegian called Jim and sat and had a few beers with him telling us his tales and travel plans before eventually going to bed. Our last morning in Shanghai was spent sorting out last minute things, food for the journey, post office and melodica buying (yes Chris eventually found the instrument he’s been looking for a while although I did want him to take it on the train and play!) before we made our way via the metro to the train station.

To be honest due to our colds we didn’t really do Shanghai justice but we still had a fun time and it’s maybe one of those places we will head back to one day, but I’m sure it will look completely different then as things are really changing quick here.

The 44 hour train journey didn't turn out too bad, we were the only westerners in our carriage and as far as we could see the only one's on the train. The train was slightly more modern and the 6 bunks were slightly closed off from the main corridors which helped keep the noise down a bit. We could get some dumplings and snacks when the train pulled into stations so we didn't go hungry, and by the end of two days doing nothing we felt we were over the worse of our colds.

Slow Boat in China

We were picked up at our hostel at 6:30am and taken to somewhere on the outskirts of Chengdu where we met Dave & Ruth and the four of us were put on a bus full of Chinese businessmen. The roads were quiet for the first half hour as we whizzed along the new highway but this soon petered out and pretty soon it was a road that would rival some of the Bolivian roads that we bumped along as being the worst in the world. At one point the road was blocked by a solitary police car as he waved all the oncoming traffic onto a slip road and into a large holding area. We didn't have a clue what was going on but after about half an hours wait we were allowed back onto the highway to continue our crawl to Chongquing.

The guidebooks describe Chongquing as a poor man's Hong Kong and yes it shares the former British colony's partiality for ugly tower blocks but lacks the colossal glass palaces that give Hong Kong one of the most famous skylines in the world. The grey skies, smog and dirty streets made us glad that we only had a few hours to spend here before we boarded our cruise ship for our three day tour on the Yangzi river. The guy from the tour company had warned us that the on board restaurant was rubbish and told us to buy as much food before boarding. After getting some lunch we picked up some extra provisions before heading to the dock and onto the vehicular cable car that took us down to our floating home.

The boat held over 400 hundred passengers and had three classes of accommodation, we had plumped for the 2nd Class 4 berth dorm which had about enough room to swing a very small cat. One of the main reasons for the four of us deciding to do the trip together was that we had heard quite a few horror stories of western travellers sharing rooms with chain-smoking Chinese men who invited all their friends into the dorm to play cards for the complete trip. So it was lucky for us that we found Dave and Ruth, two chain smoking Londoners (to be honest they never smoked in the room) to share our small cabin with. It wasn't long before the engines were running and we were waving goodbye to the tacky Blackpoolesque skyline of Chongquing's riverfront.


Dave and Ruth are on a years honeymoon which takes them on similar route as ours but in the opposite direction as they head to Japan and then Australia after China. We first met them on the Terracotta warriors trip and bumped into them quite a few times over the following week or two. We also had the bonding experience of exorcising our misfortune at staying at the worst hostel in China, the Yamen in Pingyao.

We had picked up a small slab of beer before boarding and were horrified to discover that once opened it tasted as appealing as the Yangzi which is one of the most polluted rivers in the world. As we were settling into our cabin we had a procession of people pass our door to have a peek at the strange westerners, some even stood for a few minutes and stared, we soon got used to this and just waved and shouted “Nee- Hao” to any of our curious new friends. The rest of the night we drank our horrible beer, slurped our ever so slightly better pot noodles and listened to some music as we had an early rise the next morning.


We were woken at 5:30am for the first stop on our tour at Fengdu, after fighting our way through the crowds and two other boats we eventually made it to land. It was still pitch black when we were handed to a local guide who didn't speak any English, so we decided to head off on and make our own way to the Abode of Ghosts. As daylight broke it was like the pictures of Berlin just after the allied invasion or maybe a bit like Priesthill or Darnley in Glasgow in the early 90's just before the old schemes were demolished to make way for the new toy town ghettos. All the houses on the lower part of Fengdu where being demolished due to the Three Gorges Dam which is due for completion in 2009, people were being relocated further up the hill into new apartment blocks.

Some Facts about the Three Gorges Dam:

1. It has become the World’s Largest Dam (185m High & 2Km wide)
2. When it backs up it will flood an area the size of Singapore
3. Over 2 million people will have their homes washed away & 8000 important
archeologically sites will also disappear
4. Costs over $75 Billion
5. Will produce the equivalent electricity as 18 Nuclear Power Plants

On reaching the abode of the Ghosts (also know as the place of devils) you have to cross a suspension bridge which is strung across a river a few hundred feet below, up until this point the four of us had been slowly wandering up trying to let all the frantic Chinese tourists get ahead of us. Suddenly I noticed Joanne and Dave scuttling across the centre of the bridge as if some invisible spectre was pulling them over. Ruth soon explained, that like Joanne, Dave suffers from vertigo and probably just wanted to be over the other side as soon as possible.

On the other side there were a few temples with some shoddy looking statues and lots of stalls selling cheap rubbish, but we continued on up. We then entered the Hall of Demons which was a cheap Madame Tussauds Dungeon with paper-mâché monsters torturing other paper-mâché creations while silly hooting noises and screams were being played over the sound system. It was like something out of a episode of Scooby-Doo, the one set in a disused fairground where they catch the villain and pull off his mask at the end. There was also a massive concrete/stone head at the side and on the top of the hill but we didn't really find out who and why it was there. Most of the place looked as though was created in the last five years but they had tried and failed miserably to make it look a lot older.



We soon realised that there wasn't much else to see so we headed back down to the boat through all the destruction work. At one point we watched a worker standing precariously on a wall swinging a large jack hammer as he knocked out the bricks from under his feet. This drew a ripple of murmurs and laughs from a crowd of women selling food who thought it was very amusing to see the strange westerner taking photos of the workmen. We all wished we had stayed on the boat and caught a few extra hours sleep but back on the boat we decided to go for a nap until our next stop.


The next stop was much better but that isn't really saying much, we pulled up at the Stone Treasure Stockade a 56m high wooden temple built on a huge rock. Before you get to the 12 storey pagoda you have to run the gauntlet of women selling snacks & drinks. We slowly climbed the 12 floors as everyone on the boat seemed to do it at the same time, I'm not sure how safe it was having 400+ people climbing an ancient wooden structure hanging precariously on the side of a rock but we made it to the top without incident. Once at the top there was no view to speak of as the sky was so low and overcast that we could hardly see the boat below us. On the way back to the boat we haggled quite unsuccessfully to get some beers for 2 Yuan a bottle, but had to make to do at 3 Yuan but there were a millions times better than the dishwater we had the night before. We also picked up some small potatoes on a stick to tide us over for a while.


We then had a lazy afternoon watching a movie called “Raise the Red Lantern” which was filmed in Pingyao and was set in the early part of the 20th Century. The film was about 4 concubines/wives (we're not really sure if there was a difference in this movie) each vying for the time of their husband. It was quite funny watching a movie in a place we had all been in the last two weeks and they had used Pingyao's old houses to great effect.

We stopped at nine o'clock where you could visit a temple but it was quite expensive and we decided to try and get some dinner at one of the local shops. We had a look round some of the market stalls before heading back to a place that Dave and I noticed that was showing live Premiership football. All the food was laid out on a table on the outside of the restaurant and you just picked what you wanted and they would throw it into the wok. The food was ok but we weren't sure about the sausage, we thought it looked a bit like chorizo but as for the type of meat that was in it, it could have been Beef, Pork, Rabbit, Donkey, Dog or something worse.


The game was Villa vs. Liverpool and wasn't much to write home about, Dave is a big Charlton fan and the first day we met he was quite proud as his team was sitting 2nd in the league at the time. Joanne soon put him in his place and asked what league they were in, since that first day they have slowly slipped down the table and even worse now their manager has been linked the poisioned chalice that is the managers job at Rangers. When we asked for the bill we were quite surprised to see it and thought they had made a mistake but I think they must have charged us for their full years subscription to the Premiership, so we paid up and wowed in the future to ask how much before tucking into the food. We were all still feeling a bit peckish as we headed back to the boat and decided to get some small spicy potatoes, this time the food was brilliant and the women selling them wasn't wearing a mask.

Next morning was another early rise as we transferred onto a smaller boat for a trip up the Lesser Three Gorges. These gorges are much more narrower and loom high above us as the smaller boat edged up through the mist, we spent most of the trip standing on the deck waving at people on the other boats. We even managed to see some monkeys jumping about the rocks and trees on the side of the gorge, I'm not sure exactly what type of monkeys they are but I'm certain some of my anthropoid loving friends will soon let me know. As to how the rising water will affect the monkeys we don't really know but other endangered species along the Yangzi like the Chinese Sturgeon and Yangzi river dolphin are feared to be lost forever once the river turns into a 480Km long septic tank with the untreated waste from the 40 towns and 400 factories along it's banks backs up against the dam wall.


We stopped for lunch on a steep set of stairs where crowds of local woman sold loads of interesting looking food. The first thing that stood out was the deep fried birds on a stick, complete with head, beaks and feet. None of us were brave enough to try them but we seen many Chinese getting stuck into them like we would eat an ice cream, we stuck to the safer potato on a stick option.




At the next stop we transferred on to an even smaller boat, more like a glorified rowing boat with a motor attached. We then passed some people who were standing on platforms at the side of the gorge singing into a loud haler, but nobody could tell us if they were protesting or just singing for the good of their health. After about 40 minutes sailing up some amazing scenery it was back on the middle size boat returning to main Yangzi river.


Out of the 400 people on the boat there were only around 20 westerners and an elderly Australian woman had organised a meal for all 20 of us in the ships restaurant. We were a bit unsure about the food after the reps warnings back at Chongquing but to our surprise we had a really nice meal and got speaking to some people from Canada and Switzerland. After dinner there was the chance to leave the boat for 5 hours and visit the Three Gorges Dam or stay onboard while the boat descends through the 5 locks of the Gezhou Dam.

After our experiences in Igazu in Brazil we were in no rush to go to another dam and at night time I wasn't certain as to how much of the concrete wall you would see. There have been lots of fears about the dam project and not just about it's environmental & social aspects but about the quality of the build. In 1999 over 100 cracks were discovered running the full height of the up-stream face of the dam, but the raising of the water level has continued. Chinese engineers have said that such problems are common in large dams and that the cracks have been repaired, but the former Premier Zhu Rhongji has been quoted as saying the concrete has the strength of `mashed tofu'. The Chinese also have some unfortunate history of disasters with dams, in 1975 two dams in the Henan province collapsed killing 230,000 people. This information was kept secret up until very recently and is just one of many stories we have heard about China's poor human rights record. Click this link to read an article that appeared in the Herald on the 9th Novemeber.


So we remained on board and watched from the deck as we went into the first lock and slowly descended, after about half hour the four of us head back to our room and watched the new Charlie & The Chocolate Factory movie starring Johnny Depp. Up at 5:30am for our 6 o'clock bus to Wuhan which was supposed to be 3 and half hours but it actually took us more than 6 to get to our the train station in another massive city that didn't have much to hold us there. Dave & Joanne managed to get us tickets on the next train to Shanghai which was due to leave in two hours. So after a quick bit of lunch it was onto the train for a 21 hour overnight journey, which didn't turn out too bad because of the late nights and early starts we were all tired and managed to get a few hours sleep.

Chengdu be du be du

We arrived in Chengdu on Tuesday 1st November without too many incidents on the overnight train from Xian and were picked up at the station by a rep from the Dragon Town Hostel which we had booked over the net. When we arrived at the Hostel we didn't know whether to laugh or cry as the street where the hostel sat was no longer there. In it's place was a deep channel the complete width of the street with the occasional wooden plank for you to cross from one side to the other. I felt like a contestant from It's a Knockout sheepishly navigating along these planks in the pitch black with my rucksack replacing the usual silly foam costume. All I was waiting for was a cackling commentary from Stuart Hall as the locals throw buckets of water from the windows.

The hostel was a charming four storey Qing Dynasty building with a central courtyard for people to sit about and had quite basic rooms but it was clean and handy for most things in Chengdu. The city has a population of 4 million and the place abounds with China's new wealth with opulent department stores and modern looking apartment blocks rising at almost every corner. We have mentioned a few times already about the scale of the rebuilding and expansion in China but it never fails to amaze with the endless vista of cranes looming over every place we've been. A city the size of Manchester is built every month to keep up with the economic growth.

Here are some other facts about the modern powerhouse that is China:

China is the world's third largest trading power behind the US and Germany.
In 2004, China accounted for 6% of the world's exports and 10% of global economic growth.

There are 377 million mobile phones in China making it the world's largest market.

In 2004, five million cars were sold in China, making it the third largest market in the world after the US and Japan.

China's road network is now the third longest in the world and 44% of it was built in the past 15 years.

There are 100 million internet users.

Sources: Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development. World Trade Organisation. China's National Bureau of Statistics. World Bank.

Chengdu is the capital of the Sichuan province famous for it's dishes laden with hot spicy pepper which is not for the faint hearted as it leaves your lips tingling and tongue numb. We had tried some hot pepper dishes in Xian and Joanne ruled out ever ordering it again as it took hours for her mouth to cool down. The city is also a good base for many of the sights in the surrounding areas and one of the few places in China where flights to the Lhasa the capital of Tibet are available. We looked into doing a 2 or 3 day trip to Lhasa but it was working out to be quite expensive equivalent to the cost of 30 days elsewhere in China. There is also a large fee for a Tibet Tourism Bureau permit that you never actually see and seems to be a bit rip off by the Beijing government. There are also lots of restrictions on tourists movement throughout Tibet as the place is run like a Police state with permits required to gain entry to most parts and most land crossing are banned to Westerners.

After deciding to skip the trip to Lhasa for the moment we booked a trip to the Giant Panda Breeding Research Base for the following morning. After dinner we headed back to our hostel where we bumped into Dave & Ruth and we decided to have a few drinks in the Che Guevara bar next to our hostel. We soon found out that Dave & Ruth had also booked to Panda trip the following morning, it was quite funny how similar our route and choice of hostels and tours had been in China so far. We also discussed the possibility of doing a three day trip up the Yangtze to the three gorges together to keep the cost down.


It was a 6:30 rise for the trip to the pandas but we had indulged ourselves by booking an English Breakfast (our first since Sydney) before getting on the bus. The Panda Breeding Research Base is 10km north of Chengdu and has currently about 40 giant pandas. We arrived just as the Pandas were having their breakfast of bamboo shoots followed by more bamboo shoots and some even had a desert of even more bamboo shoots. Seems like quite a good life being a Panda in the reserve, lying back while someone throws you food every now and again. There was plenty of space for the pandas to roam about and the place seemed so much better than any zoo I had been in previously. An occasional panda would take a break from eating or lounging to stretch a leg, or even roll over a bit. We even saw two adventurous souls have a game of dummy fighting before deciding it was all to much effort and slumped back into their natural position of waiting for their next bamboo fix.


We then wandered up to the nursery where we saw hundreds of Chinese crowding round a window looking into one of the enclosures, once we fought our way to the front we saw a large panda holding it's tiny six week old cub. We then went to the enclosure that had the red pandas which were quite disappointing and more reminiscent of racoons than their giant namesakes. It wasn't long before we were back in the minibus and on the road back to the hostel. It's not the longest tour you will ever go on but both Joanne and myself really enjoyed it and was well worth the money and the reserve seems to have the right balance between research and tourist attraction without being detrimental to it's star turns.


That afternoon we trouped round some hostels and tour operators trying to find the best deal for our trip on the Yangtze. After that we headed back to the hostel to catch up on internet and an hours nap before going to dinner with Dave & Ruth. The four us tried to get a taxi but the first driver's eyesight was so bad he couldn't read our map so we decided it maybe wasn't the best idea to have him drive us about the busy streets, the next taxi we stopped wouldn't take us but eventually the third one took us but he made sure he took the longest route he could find to get us to the Mix Hostel to book our tickets for the Yangtze trip.

We then had dinner in a Hot Pot Restaurant but this wasn't the Betty variety favoured by the residents of Coronation Street but the same type we had on our first night in Beijing. The quality of the food was a lot better than the poor fare on offer in Beijing restaurant but afterwards the four of us were slightly disappointed and still a little bit hungry. We decided to avoid the taxi's and head back to our area of Chengdu and maybe hopefully find a bar to stop off in on the way back. The bar never really materialised until we were almost all the way home and to be honest we wished we had given it a miss as it cost a 100 Yuan (just over 7 pound) for four small Carlsberg beers when the night before we paid 20 Yuan for four large local beers which were better than any crappy imported Danish beer.

Next day we had planned to travel out to Leshan to see the world's tallest sitting Buddha carved into a cliff overlooking the confluence of the Dadu & Min rivers but by the time I woke I was feeling quite groggy and the 2 hour bus trip and various connections didn't really appeal. We later saw some great photos taken by Dave of the 71m high Buddha but he also mentioned quite a few hassles about getting there which made me feel slightly better about missing out. After a longer than planned sleep we wandered into central Chengdu and picked up some provisions for the trip the following day and had a wander round the shops. One interesting place we came across was the Manchester United Restaurant which I could only guess at some of the items on the menu as my Mandarin isn't as good as I would like at present. Here's some of the things I worked out by the use of the some pics on the menu.

Eric Cantonese style Noodles,
Roy's Salad with a Keane as Mustard dressing,
Cheese and Beckham Sandwiches,
Brian “Chocolate” MecLaire's

We were quite hungry but we didn't fancy any of the NeVille cuisine on offer and headed to a local bakery for some lovely bread with chives and garlic. After wandering past the massive statue of Mao that dominates the centre of Chengdu we went into the People's Garden to have a nosey at the locals relaxing. The park had a few lovely lakes and gardens where loads of locals were having their wedding photographs taken.


At one point Joanne and myself were stopped by two local girls holding a camera and a small round container with two gerbils inside, at first we thought they wanted us to take their photo. But that wasn't the case they wanted to have their photographs taken with us, so we tried to keep a straight face as they both got their photos taken in turn with us. The park was also full of people playing cards and MaJhongg in the numerous tea houses dotted around.


That night we were running a bit late and decided to go to a small place along the street for dinner, this turned out to be a great little noodle place where we each had a great big bowl of noodles with beef for the grand sum of 8 Yuan (60p back home), this was by far the cheapest meal we had eaten yet in China and as far as we can remember ever. We once again met Dave & Ruth for some drinks and talked over our plans for trip the next day to Chongquing where we would board for our three day trip up the Yangtze.