The end of the road- crazy, imperial Beijing

I

Writing this as we sit in the departure lounge at Beijing airport. Like the rest of the city, the airport is super sized and very modern, but weird eg there are no bars!

Saw this today 

And these over the past few days 

And this

Perhaps gives you a taste of the contrasts here between old and new. Anyway it's been a great place to visit and a marvellous end to our trip! See you all spoon Mm&D

We climb the wall 😎

One of the highlights of the trip - hiking along a section of the Great Wall! Weather was a little unkind, very misty, but did not spoil the sense of grandeur such a massive undertaking generated - pity the poor workers though! After this we move to Beijing  - our final destination

Hanging monastery and Yungang caves

Running out of superlatives fast, having visited the hanging monastery - how did they do this?

 Followed by the wonderful cave carvings near Datong - awesome. Had to have a lie down to recover 

These are just a couple of the Buddhas in the caves, they were quite strict about no photoes

To balance all this high culture we threw in another session of KTV in one if the tackiest places yet, made Vegas look restrained 😆 this is the entrance hall!

Pingyan and Wutai Shan and a cave village

Yet another old walled city full of lovely temples and quite well preserved civic buildings - the old bank was quite funny. Maggie bought some Chinese outfits . This is one if them!

The on to Wutai Shan- another gorgeous mountain setting for a whole raft of Buddhist temples still actively used - lots if saffron cloaked monks and people prostrating themselves. En 

route 

here we also had one night in a village where the houses are cut into the mountain side - lets just say it was an experience sleeping four to a bed in a cave - Maggie quite enjoyed it I think 😳😳

Xian - city of treasure

This is a really great place to visit, starting with the surprise of a proper  quality hotel for once - although I have to say the general standard of the hotels is much higher than ten years ago when  I was last here - although many still seem to function as brothels as well - the oldest profession still thrives it seems😒

The main highlight is of course the Terracotta Army, which is really fantastic but this city is full of ancient treasures reflecting its long and important past  - a few snaps attached from the really good city museum. The food is also wonderful, with a rich mix of Chinese and Middle East traditions - all spiced up with plenty of chillies of course - if you do not like your grub hot, hot hot then stay away!

Taoist temple heaven

Wudang Shan, yet another fabulous mountain range covered in Taoist temples, home of Tai Chi and apparently where leaping tiger sleeping dragon was filmed.

Pandas, karaoke, opera and scary carvings

Now in Chengdu, home of the Pandas! They are very cuddly and photogenic, it's just a pity they seem to have no natural habitat left. They live in a huge modern city, full of neon, and a very flash metro system. We also spent a night at the Chinese opera which was a weird mix of high and low culture - from virtuoso recitals to shadow puppets. On an even more low cultural level we also had a group outing to KTV - our own karaoke booth  - Maggie and I wowed the audience with a pretty cool rendering of American Pie!

En route we visited the rock carvings at Dazu - very beautiful and scary images. Enjoy!