Confucius say ‘when man flu become more serious then man get deep husky voice like Keith Richard’.  That’s exactly what happened to Neil when his common cold turned into something more debilitating and his voice turned into a deep gravelly monotone grump.  Not much change there then.

It might not have been so bad except for the fact that our flight from Lijiang was the first we’ve been on where the seatbelt sign was never turned off and delivery of drinks by the flight crew was suspended due to the extended turbulence.  To make it worse, during the final descent into Chengdu the pressure in Neil’s ears didn’t equalise due to his head cold.  This left him with a thundering headache and deafness that lasted until next day……….he went to bed at 8.30pm. 

The following morning the headache was gone, the deafness was gone but the rasping sore throat and ridiculously deep voice persisted forcing Neil to do something he never does – seek medicine – Chinese medicine.   Well, it had to be Chinese medicine as Neil declined advice from one of the receptionists to see a doctor and without a prescription he couldn’t get antibiotics.  He loaded up in a pharmacy with all sorts of capsules, lozenges and ‘dripping pills’.  His nose, whilst not red or sore, finished up feeling like a piece of sandpaper.  Within a couple of days he was starting to get better although his voice took a little longer to get back to normal.  Cheryl being the caring person she is kept reminding him that ‘it’s just man flu, get on with it………..I had it too but I didn’t complain……..much’.

Cheryl decided to choose our hotel based on its silly name. The Lazybones Templeside Poshpacker Hostel is in essence aimed at 30 somethings who want a better standard than a backpacker dive, but still want the friendliness & fun atmosphere of a hostel.  

Whilst this name actually makes a bit of sense, we have noticed a number of shops, restaurants, hotels and many more things which have used a strict translation from Chinese that leave us scratching our heads as to what they mean.  People wear clothing like T-shirts etc with the most insane comments on them probably because it’s cool to have an English slogan. We’re sure this also works in reverse when foreigners buy clothes with exotic Chinese/Japanese/Sanskrit adornments.  You may wish to check if your clothing is having a quiet laugh at your expense!

We try to avoid doing too many touristy things at weekends as they tend to be dominated by the Chinese.  We also like to observe real life in a country so on Sunday we decided to visit what is reputedly the biggest shopping mall in the world with 511,000 square meters of purchasing opportunities.  We’re not sure of this is true but it was so big we couldn’t fit it all into the camera lens.   It was pretty awesome and contained zillions of shops, eateries, coffee shops, 5* toilets, an IMAX and cine complex, an ice rink, waterpark with flumes and a mini seaside resort with wave machine and both concrete and sand beaches. 

The whole thing is overlooked by a huge Intercontinental Hotel having rooms inside the dome with views over the swimming pools and seaside resort.  We didn’t do any shopping but then just taking in the sheer size of it was tiring enough!  Neil did enjoy riding the escalators that reminded him of David Niven in ‘Stairway to Heaven’ – they were endless.  Oh, almost forgot to say, it has 24hr sunshine!

We came to Chengdu in Sichuan Province in the hope that we would get great food – it is renowned for its hot and spicy flavours.  Well, it is hot and spicy which we enjoy but it’s also incredibly salty and ridiculously oily which we don’t enjoy.  When we asked at Poshpacker if this is normal we were told ‘yes’ so with their help we created our own menu – we decided want we wanted to eat, wrote it down and the guys behind the desk translated it into Chinese characters.  Armed with our flashcards we started to get some food we could eat especially as we got them to translate ‘no salt’!  Simple unadulterated and delicious roast duck and vegetables that taste of vegetables.

We’ve done a bit of temple-ing while we’ve been here but you can’t come to Chengdu without seeing the Panda Breeding & Research Centre.  To get there before the crowds we took a taxi for CNY30 (about £3.50) in time for the opening at 7.30am.  The taxi man had obviously been watching the recent Grand Prix as he drove like he’d started from pole position rather than a set of traffic lights.  We arrived very early, got ticket numbers 3 and 4 on the day, and had a fabulous time watching pandas.  They are the icon of the WWF and they are extremely funny to watch, especially the young ones that seem to want to run, play, climb and play-fight all day long.  Considering that many Chinese tourist attractions charge very high fees this turned out to be excellent value as we spent around 7/8hrs there.  The entrance fee for both of us was CNY118, taxi CNY30, bus/metro home CNY8 so all in all, less than £20. 

Pandas are seriously endangered and we were given a number of reasons why this is.  Obviously, we humans have had a lot to do with it.  However, the female is only on heat for 3 days a year. To make things worse, the males still think their piece of equipment is just for peeing through – unlike most wildlife that can’t get enough.  It appears that pandas prefer chewing on a piece of tasteless bamboo over a bit of rumpy pumpy!  Also, a female will normally produce twins and abandon the weakest – this is nature.  However, the centre staff have come up with a wizard idea that is now saving almost 100% of those that would have died.  Pandas don’t seem to be too bright so the staff rescue the abandoned baby at birth and keep it in an incubator.   Then, as many as 10 times a day, switch the babies over with the mother.  Mummy panda doesn’t notice and she unwittingly rears 2 babies – we said it was a wizard idea! 

Pandas also live a very solitary life in the wild so even when a female is ready to mate there is very little chance of finding a male who isn’t concentrating on his next piece of bamboo.  Whilst not a reason for being endangered, the centre staff don’t know if a female is pregnant or not, well not until little Peter or Pamela Panda literally pops out.  All females will share the same body changes during this period even though they may not be pregnant so it does keep the staff guessing.  Actually, maybe the females aren’t that daft, as they get extra rations during pregnancy.

We’ve had a good time in China and although we have an outline plan for Chapter 10 we are probably going to come back one day.  Here are our Top 10 observations, both good and bad:

1. The language is a barrier, no doubt, but we have got by with the help of a very friendly Chinese people and translation apps. We didn’t always get what we thought we were getting but that’s when a sense of humour steps forward.
2. China has to have some of the worst public toilets in the Universe.  Some are good but many are, mmm  well, we won’t describe them in case you read this eating your dinner and, just maybe, you may choose to visit yourself and we wouldn’t want to spoil the surprise.  We can tell you over a beer when we get back.
3. The public transport is excellent and simple to use even with the language barrier.
4. We have been in some remote areas and most people seem to be sharing in the new wealth being created. 
5. The amount being spent on infrastructure is breath-taking.
6. Young girls love to express themselves with fashion, especially shoes, and hairstyles.
7. Middle aged women need to take some dress advice instead of dressing like western tarts but even these girls are having fun.
8. Most men of all ages smoke, everywhere, even where there are signs saying don’t……it’s treated like the provision of hot water, a human right to smoke when and where I want.
9. There’s a lot of rich people here driving Bentleys, Porsche, Ferrari, Maserati and even your average Joe seems to drive a BMW, Mercedes or definitely a Japanese car.
10. It seems to us that it’s a good country in which to be old.  It’s like Last of the Summer Wine everywhere you go, in the parks, playing cards or mah jong or just singing and dancing together.  They are not locked away at home isolated from society.

We have liked China a lot, it’s been a real challenge but then we haven’t really had a challenge since we came here 5 years ago.

We fly home tomorrow, both of us looking forward to seeing everyone again and catching up with people we haven’t seen for some time.  We have lots on this summer so please keep following.

Yes, it’s true, we stayed in the same guesthouse as Michael Palin when he was filming his TV series ‘Himalaya’ in 2004.   We were trekking in Tiger Leaping Gorge and happened to choose the same one, Halfway House G H. 

The owner, Mr Feng de Fang or Frankie, proudly displays a simple hand written sign advertising the fact.  Our room, which cost about £17, had a wall of glass giving us a view of the mountains which Cheryl made full use of that evening.  Her bed was so close to the window that she could lay in bed and watch the moon rise over the snow-capped mountains……..wow!

Tiger Leaping Gorge gets its name from the legend that says in order to escape from a hunter, a tiger jumped across the Jinsha River at the narrowest point and there are 2 large rocks where this is said to have happened.  It’s one of the finest treks in China through some of the most naturally beautiful and diverse landscapes China has to offer. The 24 km trail runs high on the northern side of the gorge passing through quiet villages, shady forest, blustery precipice and verdant terraced farmland. The snow covered peaks of Jade Dragon Snow Mountain (5596m) and Haba Snow Mountain (5396m) shadow either side of the gorge making it a dramatic scene. 

Day 1 started with a 2hr bus journey with fellow trekkers to the park ticket office before we set off uphill on a concrete road.  Unfortunately, the road was noisy and dusty from construction traffic.  We’ve already mentioned in previous blogs that China is one massive building site and this beautiful gorge doesn’t escape the march towards China becoming the largest economy in the world.  It’s investing phenomenal amounts of money on infrastructure and in particular its high speed trains that travel around 360kph (200mph).  We travelled on one a few years ago from Shanghai to Suzhou and it was unbelievably smooth even at such high speeds.  Travelling so fast means very few bends which inevitably means that the lines go through numerous tunnels rather than around mountains.  Tiger Leaping Gorge is no exception meaning that the train will hurtle out of the mountain tunnel, speed across a 660m long 250m high bridge over the gorge before thundering into the tunnel on the other side.  We’ve calculated that this will take about 6.6 seconds from the time the nose exits one tunnel before the nose enters the next tunnel (maths freaks please feel free to put us right on this one).    We’ve also managed to find an artist’s impression of what it will look like when it’s finished in 2020.

Anyway, having negotiated the concrete road we finally found the poorly signed path and headed up the hill.  It was 1.5hrs of relentless uphill before reaching Naxi G H where we had lunch.  We were off again within 45 minutes to attack the infamous ’28 bends’.  Infamous for 2 reasons – firstly, there are many more than 28 and, secondly, it was more of the same but this time it was 2hrs of muscle numbing slog. 

Across the top we walked around 4hrs to Halfway GH.  It should have been 30 minutes less but at one point the path was so poorly marked we chose the wrong route twice before finally plumping for the correct one…..the one in the middle!  By the time we arrived Cheryl was absolutely knackered from the day’s exertion which wasn’t helped by a stinking cold. (As we write this Neil is now suffering from man flu).  After a few beers, chats with fellow trekkers to raise our spirits and some excellent food we went to bed, watched the moon rise and slept soundly.

On day 2 we rose late, had a massive trekker’s breakfast, and set off towards the end of the path.  At first the route was a good rough road before it became very narrow.  At some points it was a tad scary as there was nothing to prevent you tripping and falling far enough for rescuers to need several small boxes to scrape up the scattered body parts to enable repatriation. 

With the vertigo overcome we moved on to a very severe downhill section which was very punishing on the joints.  After about 2.5hrs we reached the end of the upper trail and we both came to the reluctant conclusion that to head down even further to the river on day 3 would be a massive mistake.  We decided to cut our trek short by one day and walked into Tina’s GH where, with real sadness, we booked a ticket back to Lijang on the bus that afternoon.  Trek over.

We thoroughly enjoyed the stunning scenery but, sadly, we didn’t enjoy the trek.  The really annoying thing was that we had done the hard part and the steep 3 to 4hr walk down to the river should have been relatively easy.  However, Cheryl’s knees were gone so it was game over.  The main problem was that the path was nothing like we have been used to in Nepal or in the UK for that matter.  It was rough with many trip hazards, gullies that required total concentration to avoid twisting an ankle and dust and pebbles on the steep down hills where you could so easily have your feet go from under you and land on your backside.  We were permanently staring at the path so that we didn’t come to harm.   We were very sad to quit and not complete the last few hours but decided to be cautious as we still have one more week of sightseeing before we fly home.

There is an upside to this tale.  We met some fellow travellers from London, Han and David, when we were in Dali.  They came to Lijiang a few days before us and checked out a restaurant called LaMu’s House of Tibet that serves excellent Tibetan food, superb western food as well as the usual Chinese favourites.  They also offer a good measure of Gordon’s gin and tonic with ice and a slice plus a very large glass of pretty decent red wine.  Obviously neither the excellent food nor the drinks were cheap but after weeks of Chinese food a decent beef chilli, dried fried yak meat, spag. bol, or pizza washed down with a dry red takes a lot of beating.  Yes, we know we’re home soon but give us a break – we ache like hell, have man flu and, anyway, we deserved it!  We had a regular booking at a window seat that made us feel like the old guys from The Muppets sitting in the gods and watching the world pass by below. 

After the visit to frenetic Dali we weren’t expecting to like Lijiang as it has an even worse reputation for Chinese tourist madness.  However, we actually enjoyed our stay and you can see from the photos that we spent each evening walking back from LaMu’s taking photos of the twisty narrow streets, small rivers, and the myriad of shops offering drums, clothes, hats ‘n cats, bric-a-brac and much more. 

It was great fun asking the young Chinese tourists dressed in their funky clothes to pose for us.  Also, take a look at the picture of the fire engine – that will show you just how narrow the streets are here in this very pretty ancient city which is surprisingly large. 

It’s not just firemen that get a mention here.  Rubbish collectors also come around in a small truck twice a day.  The vehicle plays a very loud Chinese tune that is really quaint for us to lie in bed with a cup of tea and listen to as they pass below our balcony.  However, it must be totally maddening for the workers who have to listen to it all day, every day!

Tomorrow we fly to Chengdu for our final stop before heading back home.

As soon as we arrived at the Yuanyang rice terraces we were whisked off in shared minivan to see the sunset from one of the viewing points – what a mixture, French, Brits, Canadian and Japanese.

Our choice of Timeless Guesthouse turned out to be exactly what we had hoped – very sociable and with an owner who knew so much about the terraces and planned each day for all of us as soon as we had eaten breakfast.  He joined travellers together so we could all enjoy the beautiful scenery and chat about it as we walked the terraces on the good days and visited markets. 

On the bad, cold damp days we sat in the guesthouse, hogged the only fire in the place and drank coffee and beer as we solved the world’s problems and learnt about each other’s countries.  During the next couple of days we became great friends with Han and David from the UK, Eden from Canada, Gimena from Argentina, an Ex USA marine called Megan and a Portuguese lady who we never found out her name as she never sat still long enough. 

Getting to and from the rice terraces was a long and difficult journey but it was oh so worth it.  It’s a Unesco World Heritage Site covering 12,500 hectares and is home to many different minority tribes that all come together on market day.  It’s a photographers dream to watch the colours change as the sun rises, moves across the sky before finally setting giving stunning reflections.  The terraces were hewn out of the landscape by the Hani people centuries ago and today continue to provide extremely fertile land where many vegetables are grown as well as rice.  

Our four nights on the terraces flew by and it was soon time to back track to Jianshui for one night before catching the overnight train to Dali.  The Soft Sleeper was excellent and clean and we were very lucky to be sharing with 2 young Chinese girls who were very quiet. 

Dali proved to be a lovely place with well-preserved/restored buildings and lots of places to eat including Bakery 88 which offered excellent bread, cheese, salami, prosciutto and wine- all the things we had been missing for the last few months.  Sadly, many of the bars and restaurants catered for the mainly Chinese tourists by pumping out music loud enough to wake the dead! 

After a couple of nights we managed to share a taxi with a family to our next destination, Shaxi (pronounced Shassi).  This was another preserved/restored town but it was so much more sleepy and relaxed than Dali.  It is one of only three surviving caravan oases from the old tea horse road between China, Tibet and India.  Less well known than the silk road, it was just as important for trade and at its peak 20,000 Tibetan horses were traded for 1.5m tons of Yunnan tea.  Horse rides are still provided for tourists through and around the village – quite evocative to hear them clip clop on the tree lined cobbled streets.  It’s not surprising that it’s such a popular location for movie sets.  Many of the guesthouse, including ours, and restaurants play very chilled Chinese Jazz – all this place needs is a Waitrose!

This was a place made to just chill out and relax and that’s exactly what we did.  We headed to the quaint village square each evening and sat in one of the many cafes to enjoy a couple of very strong G&T sundowners.  We then followed the reviews in Tripadvisor and headed to The Hungry Buddha for dinner which offered excellent vegetarian and vegan food.  Yes, you read this correct, we were eating veg and vegan!  This place was set up by a Michelin starred foreigner chef who trained the local people who are excellent chefs, their skill and attention to detail was incredible.  There are only 10 barstools set around the tiny open kitchen and it was just mesmerising watching them work as we chatted to other guests.  In addition to the delicious food it offered excellent wine – result! 

On our last day we went to the huge market which was fascinating to walk around, take pictures and just enjoy the lively atmosphere as villagers came from far and wide to fill up their shopping baskets, grab some food and catch up with friends before heading home. 

We make no apologies for the excessive number of photographs of old people, animals, colourful ethnic costumes and cute kids – these are our reflections of Chinese life.

We had no Chinese money, couldn’t speak Mandarin and the ATM at Kunming airport wouldn’t take our card.  Oh ****, looks like we could be leaving China earlier than planned if things didn’t improve!

Anyway, things did improve.  We arranged a car from the hotel and the driver was waiting with a sign in English!  It was easy for him to spot us as we were the only foreigners in the airport.  We chose our hotel because the reviews said that Rebecca Yang at the hotel spoke really good English…..she did and with an Aussie twang!  We had emails from her confirming the taxi, train information and all sorts of other stuff but you can’t actually type with an Aussie accent so it was something of a surprise.  She told us where to get food, train tickets, how and where to catch the bus into the centre and what to eat or not to eat!  She also walked us to the nearby Bank of China ATM which was good enough to cough up 3000CNY (just over £300)…………we breathed a sigh of relief……so did she as we could now pay her for the room and the taxi!

Our first observations of Kunming are that for a massive city of over 6m people it’s a pleasant enough place to live.  There’s virtually no English spoken, all the scooters are electric and are unnervingly silent as they fly past you from all directions.  There are lots of rubbish bins so there’s hardly any litter, the traffic is quiet, people are dressed well, we haven’t seen too many beggars and most of the cars are imported from Japan and Germany.  There’s also a huge amount of building going on – ready mix concrete trucks queuing to get into a site at 8.45pm on a Sunday evening.  On the massive site next to the new metro project there’s a construction going on 24/7.  People are very friendly and helpful although our lack of Chinese does make it difficult when people try to help us.

Despite all the modernisation there is still space for the little man and his shop outside our hotel.  We went in to buy a beer and some milk, nobody could understand what anybody was saying, and suddenly out comes his phone and he spoke into it, pressed a button and hey presto a voice from the phone said, ‘yes, that carton milk’!  So you can speak into it and get a translation or you can type into and get the same.  Cheryl now has an app that if you scan some Chinese it will translate.  Obviously it does make life simpler but it doesn’t always work so sometimes we just have to smile, say xie, xie (phonetically cher cher which means ‘thank you’) and walk away.  Everybody has been really helpful including an old guy in our favourite grocers on our second visit.  We were trying to find out how much something cost and he tried to help with surprisingly good English.  When we left with our ‘xie xie’ he replied with a huge grin on his face ‘you’re welcome’.

We were in Kunming for 4 nights exploring the city but more importantly getting set for the rest of our trip.  Rebecca was brilliant giving us written translations for really common things and arranging taxis etc.  In addition, which wasn’t in the plan, we had to buy some warmer clothing aimed mainly at our planned walking later in the trip.  It started off here at about 23C which was lovely after the sweltering 35C of Bangkok but it suddenly plunged to about 4C overnight so buying coats was essential.  Ordering food has proved to be almost impossible as very few menus contain any English or pictures.  Most of the restaurants we’ve found offer buffet hot pots which tend to be quite dull.  Instead we’ve concentrated on food courts where the variety is huge and there are pictures that you can point to.  That way you’ve got a much better chance of getting somewhere near to what you thought you had ordered!  Food courts don’t have much ambience but sometimes needs must.

We did some sightseeing to a temple and the big lake in the centre.  At this point it was grey drizzle so we were very glad of the coats.  We were amused by the groups of people, mainly elderly, dotted around the park dancing, singing, playing instruments or playing cards and mah-jong.  Most groups bring their own large speaker system on wheels and we passed several groups all within earshot but each sticking to their own routines.  What a great way to socialise and keep fit and active. 

We moved on by train to the preserved town of Jianshui.  It was an amusing journey as we were the only foreigners and we had the Shopping Channel brought right to our seat as train employees did a selling job on sweets and flexible toothbrushes of all things. 

Jianshui has some colourful old buildings and is a good place to stop off on the way to our ultimate goal, The Yuanyang Rice Terraces which is a Unesco World Heritage Site.  Our onward journey was by local bus which proved to be something of an endurance test as men here seem to ignore no smoking signs and happily turn buses into smoke filled boxes – including the driver!  The journey wasn’t all bad as we did have lots to amuse us as we switched buses in Nansha for the final leg of our journey.  We had planned to get to Xinjie and then take a minibus to the terraces but as we got off the bus in Nansha another bus driver suggested we take his bus to Duoyishu.  There aren’t many foreign tourists in China, and any that are in this area are all heading for the rice terraces so it wasn’t surprising that this driver approached us. Cheryl had a quick look at Lonely Planet, it was close to where we were headed, and gave him the nod. 

The bus took us to our original staging point of Xinjie and when we tried to get off the driver said we should stay put.  When we say ‘he said’ it was all done by sign as he didn’t speak any English.  Off we went again, passing through a number of villages before getting to a small town where we stopped to let people off.  Then our rucksacks that had been in the storage place at the back of the bus appeared inside the cab.  What followed made us laugh so much as we became surrounded by boxes of food, snacks and all sorts of other things.  The driver attempted to move on but the small town was gridlocked by double parked vehicles blocking the roads and we sat there for almost an hour while the traffic cleared.  Nobody got angry…….it was amazing. 

After a while the driver asked Cheryl for her phone again so that he could read the translated name of our guesthouse.  We have been using booking.com and the app works offline to show the address of the hotel in the local language.  There was a tense moment for us as he and his nearby passenger both looked puzzled and there were a few head shakes.  He intimated that we should call the guesthouse but Cheryl, using her best sign language, explained that we did not have a Chinese sim.  He called the owner and before very long we stopped, he told us to get off, and after a lot of shouting down the hill we were miraculously met by a small van that took us right down to our guesthouse……thank you lovely bus driver! 

Have we mentioned before that ‘Lucky’ is Neil’s middle name?