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Travels with Faith
I always wanted to travel and spent a few years backpacking around Europe and Asia working on the way but then for many years, apart from family holidays in Europe, I didn't really do any travelling -- now the time has come to hit the road again -- not quite -- money not as plentiful as would have liked but still ... once or twice a year, barring world wars, ecological disasters and the end of the world as we know it, I will be adding to this travel blog with at least my annual holiday, and from time to time, something a little more ambitious. graphix2go
Travel Blog Posts
October 8th 2012
And so we come to the last blog entry for this trip. Because flying to Hong Kong is, in our opinion, very expensive, we decided to take a flight to Shenzhen and get a bus the rest of the way. Only problem was there was only an early morning flight and then no other flight until 10:30 at night. So we chose the early morning flight and left Yangshuo in the dark at 5:30 a.m. I was sort of gratified to see that it was still raining when we left. When we got to Shenzhen, there were long lines for immigration. Up until the very last minutes of our trip to China, we had avoided this type of thing, but now here we were, one last taste of China. We were there for about an hour, ... read more
October 7th 2012
All the way to Yangshuo we were surrounded by towering green karsts of different shapes and sizes. We have seen karsts in Laos and Vietnam but as with all things Chinese, the Chinese karsts were bigger and the scale was enormous – it just goes on and on. We haven’t seen many blue skies on this trip and we weren’t to see any here either. As we rode along, gazing at the scenery, weather a bit hazy, I started to feel sleepy. In Asia, whenever I take a fairly comfortable ride, the rocking of the car makes me sleepy. I tried to keep my eyes open. I didn’t want to miss the magnificent scenery that we were passing. I have to admit that I spent a good deal of the trip dozing. In my waking moments, ... read more
October 5th 2012
It was time to move on. We had a flight from Kunming to Guilin in the afternoon. We decided to take the bus this time. It took about five hours from Dali to Kunming with a 30 minute stop. The time went quite fast, we were accompanied by lovely scenery for the entire journey. I took a few photos from the window. We watched all the stages of the rice harvest, from green stalks not yet ready, to harvesting of the yellow stalks, then binding all the rice in stacks, and finally the cleared field of golden stubble. Most of the fields we passed were still green and not ready for harvesting. By the time we got to Yangshuo a few days later, they had already finished the harvest and were burning off the stubble and ... read more
October 3rd 2012
We decided to take a train to Dali. We actually wanted to take a taxi but the lady in the hotel reacted with horror. She seemed to think that the expense was much too much for us. Maybe something in our appearance? So we arrived at Lijiang’s very modern train station, only to find we had to get our cases up a near vertical flight of stairs to get to the platform. We both had about 20 kilos each. Micha was pushing me from behind. Somebody took pity on me about half way up and grabbing my suitcase easily hoisted it up the rest of the stairs. Poor Micha thought he was going to have a heart attack. But we finally made it on to the train. The train was really old. We sat downstairs on ... read more
October 3rd 2012
We stayed in Shuhe by chance. Shuhe is a small village about 15 minutes from Lijiang. It also has a lot of guesthouses, restaurants, and shops but it is on a smaller scale than Lijiang and I thought it was absolutely charming. Probably the highlight of our trip. I had booked a hotel in Lijiang, so I thought. But the hotel I liked was in Shuhe so we ended up in Shuhe by accident and I am so glad that we did. We arrived on a rainy night and couldn’t see much but after a very warm welcome at the hotel were shown to our room and just loved it. The bed was very special, made from tree trunks. There was a sitting area, it was comfortable and cozy. We never spent a long time in ... read more
October 2nd 2012
Oh the shame of it! I filed Pingyao under Shaanxi Province, when as everyone knows it is in Shanxi Province. This is especially shameful because we had an entire lesson where the dialogue largely consisted of whether the speaker is referring to Shaanxi Province or Shanxi Province. I didn’t like that particular lesson, I found it irritating. I mean, what difference could it possible make? So just for the record, Xi’an is the capital of Shaanxi and Taiyuan is the capital of Shanxi. Or is that the opposite? To make things a little more confusing, the two provinces are right next to each other and one means west mountain pass and the other means west mountain. So we left Chongqing in heavy rain, keeping our fingers crossed for good weather, or at least not too much ... read more
September 30th 2012
Pingyao, September 8-10 After four days in Beijing it was time to move on. It wasn’t really enough. There is such a lot to see and we saw very little. All the tourist sites are huge. Parks, palaces, squares, buildings, etc. are always built over huge tracts of land. Getting from point A to B and back can often take up the better part of the day, even though everything looks within comfortable walking distance on the map. It's wise to take taxis to get to your destinations because once you get there you will have to do a great deal of walking. If you really want to enjoy the different sites and put some distance between yourself and the other tourists, just one or two kilometres will get you far enough away from the madding ... read more
September 27th 2012
Beijing, September 4-8 Why finally? Finally because I just wrote a long blog entry and travel blog took the opportunity to refresh the page and said entry is no longer, disappeared, non-existant and just plain gone. Oh well. But that's not the real reason. There are a number of reasons. I didn't actually write a blog while travelling. I usually do but this time I just didn't feel like it. Also my notebook from work proved to be great as far as checking mail, and watching videos and listening to music goes but I couldn't type with it. I did go looking for an internet cafe at one point but couldn't find one. I think that with everybody having a laptop or smartphone, internet cafes have just quietly faded away. So there was some doubt about ... read more
February 18th 2012
I visited Portugal in 2009 and again in 2010 to visit my brother, Russell, who had settled in the Algarve in his retirement, intending to spend his days playing golf. I loved Portugal -- the scenery, the people, the food, everthing really. I was only in the south of the country on these trips, the Algarve and Lisbon but I have visited the north, around Porto, before and it was also very nice. On the last trip, Micha and I spent a few days in Lisbon which is a fantastic city, small but packed with interesting sites and very easy to get around in. We drove from Lisbon to Tavira, staying off of the highway and using the coastal roads instead. We also visited quite a few towns and villages while we were there. I particulary ... read more
March 7th 2010
Feb. 27 -- we went up to the snowline this morning. We didn't know what to expect as we were told to buy blankets and warm clothes. All the way up there are shops renting ski suits, equipment and boots, even fur coats, with salesmen calling out that it is "compulsory" to hire ski clothes or we wouldn't be allowed into the site. We withstood the pressure and arrived at the Solang Valley Ski Resort to blazing sunshine and blue skies. There were many Indian families enjoying themselves. The site offered all the usual entertainments -- mule and yak rides, ski mobiles, ski lessons, paragliding, etc. The ski lift wasn't in operation so the season must be over. We took a long walk on a side road through a winter wonderland -- and not cold at ... read more
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