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!

Mountains, monks and mad monkeys

On the last few days we have really had a sense of how huge China is, having driven along a spectacular road  through mountains, amazing bridges over giant gorges and countless rivers to get us to the holiest Buddhist site in China  - Emei Shan. This is a mountain covered in temples amid  lush rain forest - beautiful!

The mountain also  hosts some very aggressive monkeys, which we had to fight off with our umbrella - quite scary . The hotel had the added bonus of s hot pool spa, where Maggie continued her recuperation. It's a tough life. 

Tiger Leaping Gorge

Last major site for us in Yunnan before we head to Schezuan - I hiked bit a and Maggie took a bus, her leg is slowly healing we think. Sorry for rather feeble pictures, my technology does not do this justice.

Lijiang

Spending a few days here in what was billed as one if the most picturesque Chinese towns - well maybe it was before being rebuilt after the big earthquake a few years back. It is now just a fake tourist destination full of tourist tat - shame. Anyway it is a good place to base yourself for the Tiger Leaping Gorge which we hike tomorrow.

The joys of overlanding

Just a quick note from Dali to explain attached pic - en route today we suffered a massive blowout, thankfully whilst parked (don't ask me - something to do with a detached brake pad bolt) so had to temporarily abandon the truck, jomp on in some mini vans and await the repaired Archie. He made it a couple of hours later, so we can go on regardless 

Buddhists and blind masseuse

IGiven Maggie's limited mobility, yesterday was spent (slowly) mooching around Kunming - which is a very pleasant, bustling city of around 6 million people. We visited an arts centre /  gallery, a large Buddhist temple, then had a very nice lunch, a rest then a really great Chinese meal - we have a local guide for all of this part of the trip and she helps us order the best dishes. On the way back to our hotel Maggie had a very challenging  i.e tough massage from a blind masseuse on the street - I think she enjoyed it even though she was wincing and jumping and cried out in pain at one point!

China and nearly bust

Sorry for delay in posting but have just arrived in Kunming, a city of about 6 million and this is the first Internet connection we have had.

This is our fifth night and should have been only our second hotel after three nights camping - but we had to check into a hotel last night as Maggie fell over chasing an errant toilet roll (these things are like gold dust) and badly strained / pulled her hamstring. Luckily there is a doctor on the truck and bed rest he advised should sort it out- let's hope he is is right as we still have a long way to go. The pic below was taken today so she is still looking pretty good!

The camping we did manage was great, as we have to shop and cook as well - the local markets are just amazing, full of everything you could imagine, animal vegetable or mineral! I introduced a few more folk to the delights of porridge too. We camped one night on a banana plantation in the middle of nowhere and the other night inside a closed down steel works - the night we missed was probably the best sight - the car park of the rather nice hotel we were in, at the Stone Forest in Shilin in Yunnan. Such fun!

We have two nights before setting off again towards Dali