Bryan's China

A quick report and some happy snaps of my three weeks travelling around China, in a bracing winter.

Guangzhou would have to take the prize as the ugliest city I have ever seen. Building construction going on everywhere... rubble, shade cloth covered buildings and scaffolding...joy! A city getting ready for the 2010 Asian Games - same story in Shanghai, I heard. The much touted island enclave of Shamian Dao, advocated by Lonely Planet as a peaceful haven, was a building site. I spent half an hour there and got out. No doubt you can see why.

It was, though, easy to get around on the Metro...especially after a year on the MRT in Singapore...direct tansfer of commuting skills. On my return to GZ at the end of the trip I managed to have a couple of days where I ventured out into some more local areas...with leafy streets offering some oldy-worldy charm.This would be a hot place in summer and the pollution was thick enough to be cut with a knife. I managed to use my budding but very limited putonghua skills to buy the correct hard sleeper ticket to Zhang Jia Jie... and in an even more noteworthy achievement ... actually found my way onto the correct train (with correct ticket) among the absolute chaos that is Guangzhou Huochezhan (train station).

Zhang Jia Jie was definately an aweinspiring landscape. Stunning sandstone peaks in a misty national park. We spent two days walking, one climbing the 1000's of steps to the top to view some of the peaks and the next, thankfully, doing a long but very pretty gorge walk following a stream between the peaks.Our guide was a little painful as he wanted us to spend more money than was necessary and I don't think he liked the idea of us walking everywhere... wanted us to take cable cars, elevators and carts as many of the other, dare I say Chinese tourists, do. I think he earnt a commission from each ticket office where he got us to spend money... we did come down the the 300 meter elevator from the peaks on day one but other than that, much to his grumbling disappointment, it was hoofing it all the way. And was there any one else on the trails? You bet there wasn't, we had them all to ourselves!!!

After three days here it was on to the junction town of Jishou and into a mini-bus to the small Miao village of Dehang. My Chinese colleague's friend had advised us not to stay in Dehang...'nothing there' but I stuck to my guns and insisted on going and thank god I did. It was magnificient. How many people there ...me and my Chinese friend and you and stop counting. Yes it was cold and the hotels are really set up for the summer season.. but the walks out along the streams, throught the padis and into the gorges, climbing up to the two raging water falls were nothing short of exquisite.

So much clean, clear ,running water and the stone pathways and bridges were a constant delight. For me, Dehang was definately a special part of the trip.

So much for this post. I find the process of getting the images & text into the right alignment/position in these things tiresome. Next installment in a new post...