Kung Fu bus movies & celebs in China?!
Trip Start
Jun 01, 2009
1
38
42
Trip End
Feb 16, 2010
Where I stayed
Yangshuo, Guangxi Zhuang, China
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
before we "wrote" the Panda blog we left you with that we were in Xian going to the Terracotta warriors. This was almost two weeks ago, so quite a lot of catching up to do...
The terracotta warriors were found somewhere in the seventies by a local farmer, who still actually sometimes comes to the site to eat his lunch (see pic). The warriors are a massively impressive sight. There are currently 3 pits open, but they expect that there are a lot more. A couple of thousand stone warriors all with different faces were burried by the emperor that united China, presumably because he thought his reign would continue in the afterlife. His first idea was to just kill all these people when he died, so they could come with him, but his advisors persuaded him otherwise...
Amongst the warriors there was this highly ranked general that somehow looked rather familiar to us (see pic).
As mentioned before we thought that one train ride in China was enough so this time we flew to Chengdu. I won't go into the Panda's again, but if you have missed the pictures and especially the video, I suggest you go one blog back to go and see it!
Chengdu itself is a prototype of China's economic rise. Massive buildings everywhere, a centre where thousands of Chinese go shopping in Western style stores and McD's etc. everywhere you look! So far we haven't seen anything of the "3rd world" China as yet. If somebody would have told me I was in Berlin I would have also believed it. Apart from all the Chinese people bending themselves in all kinds of angles to make a picture of us (even Monks!) and the Chinese signs everwhere of course... Ah yes, I almost forgot. It seems that we are celebs in China. Why I don't know, but everybody says hello to us and then starts giggling and they all want to take pictures of us. It's like we are in a Zoo and we are the animals...
Chengdu is famed for its hot food, especially the so called hot pot. We went to one of the restaurants (the only white people) to try this out. Luckily there was one waitress that spoke English and after a short while our mouths were burning, but it was very good. We tried some duck tongue, beef, roots, tofu etc.etc. Very nice indeed.
Our next flight brought us even further south to Kunming. Annemieke was sitting next to this old lady and during the landing she grabbed Annemieke her arm as it seems she was quite scarred...
Apparently this city is called the spring city of China as the weather is supposedly always nice. Not when we are there of course. It was freezing. Luckily we were only there one night as we went on to Dali by bus. ThHe bus ride was quite comfy as there is highway all the way, but unfortunately also Chinese style Kung Fu movies all the way...
Dali used to be an ancient capital and still has a wall around it. The Chinese, of course, have rebuild the whole city so it is now fully equipt to handle the hordes of Chinese tour groups every day. But the surroundings are beautifull. There is a nice big lake and loads of mountains surrounding it. We were in a very nice hostel and yes the sun was even shining! So we spend our days there walking around the lake and in the mountains. The mountain path was a bit of a disappointment as they "Chinesed" it. Meaning they paved the entire path! Where is the fun in that!
From Dali we went back to Kunming and hopped on a flight to Guilin and from there we bussed ourselves to Yangshuo where we are now and will stay until Monday. Today we did quite a nice 20km hike along the river. There is a beautiful karst scenery here and we finally are somewhere where there isn't a big city! Rural China at last, before it perishes! Pictures of Yangshuo will be part of the next blog.
Well, we have 1.5 weeks left in China, going to Guangzhou and then Macau and Hong Kong. So see you next time!
Ivo & Annemieke
