keliain
Kelly & Iain Joined: August 5th 2006
Logged in: November 3rd 2010
Logged in: November 3rd 2010
Travel Blog Posts
View of the Corniche
Just returned from a fantastic trip to Abu Dhabi & Oman! This was a wonderful itinerary which was put together in conjunction with Explore Holidays & Abu Dhabi Tourism. I was the Etihad Airways escort for a group of Travel Agents on a trade mission to expericence what the region has to offer to the Australian travel market. Day 1 - Departing Brisbane Our Group flew from Brisbane to Abu Dhabi arriving at about midnight, so our group headed straight the Millennium Hotel, Abu Dhabi for a good night sleep before the adventures began!. Day 2 - Abu Dhabi - UAE I woke up bright and early to a stunning view from my room over Abu Dhabi's Corniche (esplanade) overlooking the Capital Gardens and the Arabian Gulf. Our first day we headed out on a sightseeing ... read more
Yangshuo Downtown
Yangshuo is a great little town with loads of restaurants, cafes and shops surrounded by stunning karst landscape, it is adorable. We enjoyed the slow pave of life here and spent our first day wandering around the shops and having dinner at one of the many restaurants in the main street of Yangshuo. The next day we headed off for a Cycling tour of Yangshuo and hired a guide to take our group out to Half Moon Hill, through the local villages and rice paddies, with the karst landscape all around us it was just incredible. We were all exhausted from our day of riding and covered in mud from the muddy village trails. Although a little rainy (the photo's don't do it justice) there were plenty of locals out with their water buffalo, kids playing, ... read more
Tiger Leaping Gorge
We were finally on our way to do the long awaited hike up & along Tiger Leaping Gorge. Our bus took us from Lijiang 1 hr & half to the Gorge, which is said to be one of the deepest gorges in the world. It is 16km long and 3900m high. It was hard work but we both thoroughly enjoyed this hike. Once you get past the 28 bends, all the hard work is over. It is like walking across the roof of the world. At every turn you have to stop and take a breath and take in the shear beauty of this incredible landscape. We spent 6 hours hiking on the first day and stayed overnight at the Tea & Horse Guesthouse. The guesthouse had hot water, a double bed and was clean and ... read more
Naxi Orchestra....5
We went to watch the Naxi Orchestra perform at the Naxi Music Academy. It was beautiful, but most surprisingly was hilarious! The members of the orchestra were 70 yrs + and kept dropping off to sleep randomly to our group's amusement. ... read more
Incredible Architecture
We arrived into Lijiang's new town at the end of our long public bus ride and our Gap escort had arranged for some local porters to come and collect our bags so we could walk 30 minutes into the Old Town to where we were staying. Immediately we fell in live with this old town, with the small laneway's and cobbled stones and beautiful Chinese architecture. We checked into our Guest House which was smack bang in the middle of the old town and was a lovely little guest house just off the Market Square. Lijiang Old Town is a mixture of cobbled alleys and canals that amaze you!. The town is full of Guesthouses, Cafe's and Restaurants and covered with red lanterns and shops selling all sorts of souvenirs. The local Naxi traders who still ... read more
Hard day at the Market
Just outside of Dali, is one of many Bai villages - Xizhou where we drove out to see the local Bai minority tribes trading and buying their daily supplies from the Market and to see the small laneways and preserved architecture in the old village. We had an incredible time here watching the local men & women carry their baskets and barter for their fruit & vegies. ... read more
Small Villages
Woke up early to catch Bus 63 from opposite the Camelia Hotel to Central Bus station on Beijing Lu. Hitting the road for our 5 hour bus ride to Dali, we were excited to get out of town and see some of the countryside along this route. Took about an hour to get out of the city and into the countryside. It was amazingly lush and green and was dotted with little villages and rice paddies. Each village seemed to have different symbols or paintings on their traditional homes which was fascinating to see, it was hard to stop looking out the window at the scenery. The roads were pretty good and the bus was modern, clean & comfortable and even had a TV screening movies in Chinese and gave out bottled water for the drive. ... read more
