Lottie Let Loose

After a cross taxi driver took us to our hotel from the train station early in the morning - it becomes a theme for our stay here - a one way street is not their favourite place to be in busy Beijing - we settled in with our usual post sleeper train showers and then set off for a walking tour of Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. Fortunately this time we had all slept well on the train so were feeling a lot more perky. As soon as we set foot outside the hotel we realised the Tiananmen Square trip would be somewhat curtailed as right outside our hotel was passing the Beijing marathon and loads of runners whizzing by in a flurry of flags and numbers and costumes. All very exciting and we cheered ... read more

We set off very early the next morning for the Chengdu Panda Breeding Centre, about a 3/4 of an hour taxi drive out of the city. We had to arrive early as pandas are only active early in the morning when they wake up and eat, then eat some more, and maybe if they feel like it, eat a little bit more! The rest of the day they have to stay pretty inactive to conserve energy - there aren't really a lot of calories to be had in bamboo. Sadly there was yet another hill to get up and my asthma coughing and wheezing (not having been helped by the city smog) was getting really bad so I had to take it pretty slowly. We first went to have a look at the panda kitchen where ... read more

As we arrived at Chengdu train station we said goodbye to our new soldier friends who were off to protect ********! I probably shouldn't tell you what they were off to protect in interests of national security ;) We had arrived in another massively populated Chinese city. Chengdu, with a population of around 14 million (!), is the capital of Sichuan province, famed for its hot, spicy food and we were looking forward to seeing how spicy this actually was. We had to wait in a queue at the underground taxi rank for ages, it being morning rush hour, then we bundled into 2 taxis, us in the one without Dennis, hoping we didn't get completely lost in this huge city without him and no real clue where we were supposed to be, other than what ... read more

And so to the impressive gorge sections of our Yangtze River Cruise. First to wow us is the Quatang Gorge, its huge towering mountains enveloping us on both sides in all their majesty. Massive folds of rock cascading down to the water's edge, a white stripe indicating the levels the water rises to in the winter months. Rock beautifully drizzled with vegetation clinging to its folds, lush and green against light brown. In the gorge we are suddenly dwarfed, our previously large boat now a tiny spec floating on the water as if nothing but dust. Massive grins and sighs from Lottie Let Loose, in her favoured natural environment. But even here man has made his mark with massive red lettering carved into the rocks 'Kuimen stands powerfully and sails pass trippingly' it proclaims. Personally I ... read more

We arrived back at the boat after our fantastic tour to the Ghost City and were immediately treated to a hot pot demonstration by one of the chefs. One of the ingredients was dried mushrooms, packed into tiny boxes not much bigger than a standard matchbox. Once re-hydrated these turned into a huge pan full of jews-ear mushrooms! I couldn't taste the hot pot as it was meaty, but it was judged delicious by the others. Sadly we learnt that we wouldn't be able to stop off at the Shabao Zhai pagoda in the afternoon after all as not enough people had signed up to make it a viable excursion. So instead we settled down to a session of cards 'Beat up the Landlord' joined by the lovely Mr Wong in his red star hat. We ... read more