Central China

Asia » China
July 15th 2007

Published: August 8th 2007

Edit Blog Post

Jenny and Jay

Hua Shan

The Lynns at the top to watch the surise on Jenny's 26th birthday.

Hey guys!!!

Beijing seems a long while ago, so thought it’s about time to update you all on our blog. We’re currently in Yangshou in the south of China. It’s gorgeous here and one of the few places we’ve been to where the skies haven’t been obscured by haze and pollution. We spend our days cycling round the paddy fields, or rather getting lost - Jay even lost a flip flop in a paddy! - then enjoy some beers in the evening as bars are a plenty here. Today are arses are seriously killing from a mammoth ride yesterday though - ouch!!!

Anyways, after BJ, we headed to Xi’an on a sleeper train (these things are fab and should be introduced in Europe!). Here we went to see the famous Terracotta Warriors; life-size statues thousands of years old that were discovered deep in the group by some farmers digging a well. They think there’s loads more around the area, but they’re just waiting for the right technology to be developed to excavate them.

For my birthday, we climbed Hua Shan. This is a Taoist mountain 2100m high where longevity is worshipped; quite appropriate for a 26th birthday we

Chengdu

How cute is this dude?

thought! We have never seen so many steps in our life! As we got nearer the top, they became steeper and narrower, so that we had to climb on the edges of our boots. At times it was a sheer vertical rock face with a few holes and chains to help pull ourselves up. We spent the night at the summit to wake up at 4:30 the following morning to see the sunrise. This was an awesome sight! We then had the climb down… it took us longer to get down than it did to get up, which shows how steep it was! Our knees had completely given up by the end and our legs didn’t recover for days.

So we spent the next few days on a boat cruising down the Yangzi river, walking like an old couple wherever we went. People must have thought there was something seriously wrong with us! It was lovely to see the river before much of the famers land gets flooded by the Three Gorges Dam project. All guides informed us that everyone was very pleased to be moving home. Hmmmm…. Interesting…. Even though hundreds of generations have been farming these lands?

Yangshou

Geeze our bums hurt after a mamoth bike ride!!!

We then took a detour to Chengdu to see the pandas!!!! There are only 1000 left in the world and they are such private creatures that it’s very unlikely to see them in the wild. So we went to the next best thing… the Breading Research Centre. We got there early to see them all playing and munching on bamboo. They are so adorable and we really wanted to steal one to take with us on our travels! However, Chimp got a bit jealous about this idea, so we didn’t follow through with the plan.

And then that brings us to Yangshou. We’re off to Hong Kong in a few days. Hope to meet up with Betty Chan and Loleita Lei for those that remember them from the Ursulines!

We hope that everyone is well.

Miss you all,

Jenny and Jay xxx

Additional photos below

Photos: 17, Displayed: 17