Tuesday 15th January After a fairly sleepless night, Rags suffering from toothache and Judy getting a neck ache from the high pillows, ending up using her jacket as a pillow, we headed out into the cold dark street at about 8am. It only took us 15 minutes to walk to the air ticket office where a bus was waiting, and still waiting until almost quarter to nine even though it was absolutely full. The bus trip was absolutely amazing with the sun coming up over the valley as we meandered our way out of Lhasa past villages and through a long [View Full Entry]

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Sunday 13th January Only a fortnight left before we go home. Looking forward to that but at the same time we have so much to see. Both of us had reasonable night's sleep although we were both still suffering from altitude sickness and the pillows were too high. It will be great to get home to our own pillows! The breakfast of a lukewarm fried egg, toast, fried cabbage and chilli, and another unidentified vegetable didn't cure us but it filled the hole. When we checked in last night we had rung our Tibetan guide to say we weren't staying at [View Full Entry]

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Friday 11th January Not only was it still dark when we left the hostel at 0700 it was also raining very lightly. Luckily the bus was there within 5 minutes just as Judy had said it would be and we were at the railway station within 10 minutes. The atmosphere at the station was mind-boggling. In the dim light all you could see were thousands of people in the square, either waiting for arrivals or on their way out. We firstly went to one of the shops where we had bought dumplings on the way in, getting 16 delicious ones for [View Full Entry]

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Wednesday 9th January Emerging from the train station there was someone there from the Shuyuan Youth Hostel with our name on a card as expected for our free transfer. We were the first at the mini bus so while we waited for a group of English girls we bought some steamed dumplings for breakfast, yummy and a bargain at 3 yuan for 8.( about 50c Oz) After booking into the Shuyuan Youth Hostel, built around the courtyard of the old county government buildings, we caught the bus back to the railway station to book our trip to Lhasa in a couple [View Full Entry]

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Tuesday 8th January This morning we walked through the hutongs eventually reaching our destination the Lama Temple. We were amazed at the number of people there all burning incense at one of the temples there. This complex is the largest Buddhist temple outside of Tibet. The Lama Temple is home to the Yellow Sect of Buddhism, which is the same sect as the Dalai Lama. It is an active lamasary, which means that monks of the sect live and work in the temple. The temple is also home to an amazing relic: the largest Buddha statue carved from a single tree. [View Full Entry]

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Monday 7th January After seeing an exhibition on the Great Wall of China in Hong Kong during our visit there in 2002 we vowed then that it was a “must see and do”. Today we did it even though we had to battle with a few obstacles. The first was getting on the road by 0700 when it was still dark and the temperature -6 degrees. The second was sitting in a small car with 2 others plus the driver and having to travel for 3 hours each way with our knees up around our ears! The third was the actual [View Full Entry]

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Thursday 3rd January We got out of bed before the alarm went off at 0615. Rags as usual before going somewhere new, hadn't slept well and had been awake since 0300. Hans & Marion were already up and after wishing Marion a happy birthday and giving her a small present in appreciation for having us we had breakfast. Hans had originally intended on accompanying us to Schipol Airport to “make sure you leave”, but Rags talked him out of this as we would be in a hurry booking in and only have a short while with him. Even so, he stayed [View Full Entry]

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Friday 28th December Judy is very slowly recovering, this morning she felt she had to do something but was not yet ready for a long walk. Instead she and Marion went shopping for some essentials, this being enough for one day. After lunch, Hans took Rags northwards to where there is the main dyke, Afsluit dyk, which is 38kms long with the North Sea on one side and a huge man-made lake, Ijssel Meer, on the other, joining up to Freisland at the other end. About half way along the dyke (there is a 4 lane highway on it) we stopped [View Full Entry]

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Wednesday 26th December Before lunch Hans & Rags went for a walk in a different direction, this time driving to a nature reserve a short distance away. It was quite chilly but every once in a while the sun peeped out from the clouds forming 'God's fingers” on the landscape as shown in the photo. The farmhouse pictured is for sale and with about 4 hectares of land is priced at about A$2 million! Many geese and white swans were seen but the majority of the wildlife remained either hidden or had not arrived from the northern areas yet. This is [View Full Entry]

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To all our family and friends We hope you enjoy the Christmas Season and we wish you all a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year. We have been thinking of you and hope you enjoy these photos we took for you. We hoped to post them earlier but time and sickness overtook us. Looking forward to catching up with the Aussies at home next month. Best Wishes Rags and Judy [View Full Entry]

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