Tiger Leaping Gorge (虎跳峡)
One of the deepest gorges of the world with its up to 3000m tall walls, Tiger Leaping Gorge attracts many, mostly foreign treckers for some fantastic views. The trek became quite popular over the years, so that transportation and also food and loging on the way is no issue at all any longer, small backpack sufficient. But the views stay the same. And the trail is still just a beaten path. No stairs nowhere. Hiking pure in an exciting surrounding!
LiJiang (丽江)
LiJiang is a charming little town in Yunnan, of which especially the old town is amazing in its litteral meaning: It’s a maze of cobble-stone alleys and paths and you will get lost for sure. Don’t worry…you aren’t the first one and you won’t be the last one either. It’s just fun to dive into the alleys, get lost, emerge somewhere, find something seen before, and after 2 or 3 days even find short-cuts. Continue reading LiJiang (I) A-Maze-ing
EMei Shan (峨眉山)
11 hours hiking, incl. 1 hour lunch break, 25km distance only, but 2.500m altitude difference, netto…with all the ups and downs we probably did 3000m up. In one day, which was yesterday (12-JUN-2007). It is doable given the steep stairways on EMei Shan. It is no fun on the way, partly due to these very stairways. It is one of you best possible experiences after you reach your destination: Golden Summit. Continue reading EMeiShan – There are 5 Million stairs…
Just a quick note so you won’t declare me dead: Today was a lush day in ChengDu. Just in the evening I had a brief visit to WenShu Temple, which is actually just a 10 minute walk from my hotel, but into the other direction, where also Payam’s hostel is.
I won’t be able to do a long update tonight as we are sitting here over one or the other beer and plan out the next days, but let me give you a quick heads-up and outlook on our future plans, as in the future the updates here might be a bit more infrequent:
Continue reading ChengDu (V) WenShu Temple / Further Plans
With a lot of investment on both ChengDu’s and my side the two of us came to agree that there are indeed nice places in ChengDu! Lonely Planet will require an update as will some tourist maps. But lucky as I was (or: as ChengDu was ;)) I passed by some park-like grounds in the taxi, which had brought me from the airport to the hotel. And the map I got in my hotel, an all-Chinese map, not actually really well suitable for touristic purposes, had in about the area where I saw these greens out of the taxi window indeed chartered two parks and some pagodas. These areas were my goal today. And I just took a deep breath after I noticed that I selected no less than 27 picture to be published today, record for a single day report! Continue reading ChengDu (IV) Eventually…we start to become friends!
Let me just briefly state: I am back in the city I like least so far: ChengDu. I could lie and say I wanted to give it a second chance to convince me of its beauties. But as a matter of fact: I am here merely to meet with Payan, the German I had met before in Lhasa (see Future Plans in Lhasa (IV)). He returned here first and expected me to pass through as I had written him. When learning he is here I interrupted my original plan to move directly on to KunMing. Continue reading ChengDu (III) Back we are…
07.07.07…I guess there were many weddings throughout the world today. Unfortunately not including me, I wasn’t even invited to any one, nor did I see any one here. I would probably not even have noticed the rarity of today’s date if not the morning newspaper had an article about a Libanese couple, which wanted to marry on this date no matter what (in fact: the bride wanted, but the bridegroom accepted it so it would be easier to remember the date ;))
Well, the best I have done with this date was to get on Taipei 101’s observation deck, which at least provided me with a dated ticket I will now use forever as a bookmark; it’s print reads “2007/7/7 12:00”. Continue reading Taipei (III) 101 and the Leaders
Taipei is not a city for sightseeing. And I had mostly come for the Palace Museum anyway. Hence, today was a museum day: National first, then Palace.
Before that I quickly stopped by the Delight Hotel to reserve for the last night. (Their internet site is extremely well done…looking quite a bit better than in reality ;)) In an attempt to save money I had originally reserved my current Sun Dynasty “5-star-on-the-decline” place for 2 nights only and now could not extend by another 2 nights, but only 1 as the place is sold out. It was again a hard time finding another hotel which had capacity and was cheaper than the current. Budget options still fully booked. The Delight Hotel is in an unimpressive side street, but looks quite good from inside, is close to my current hotel (so I will just walk my bag over tomorrow) and even closer to the MTR station “NanJing East Rd.” (南京東路). And surprisingly, when checking personally, the front desk gave me a rate even better than via an internet reservation. Continue reading Taipei (II) National and Palace Museum
Taipei (台北)
What an easy going day: The breakfast has a fair cappucchino, you walk out of the hotel door and stumble over a Starbucks (which I haven’t visited yet as I just had a cappuchino), life on the streets is a lot safer than in China’s mainland: Cars actually stop in front of zebra strips and when doing right turns before crossing pedestrians! I got used to that again in a matter of minutes. Hope I can readapt to mainland’s way of traffic once I’m back… Continue reading Taipei (I) Rain
Pathetic title, isn’t it? 😉 What I am talking about is: The Macau fortress and lighthouse (worldly) and various churches (heavenly). And gardens there were, too!
Continue reading Macau (IV) Protection, worldly and heavenly