mrusso

The journey from Chengdu to Chongqing took about four hours, and went through some of the most fertile and hilly land in all of China. We passed through extensive areas of terraced rice paddies, where we saw many of the farmers ploughing their ground in the traditional way, that is, using a simple wooden plough pulled by one or two oxen - no wonder that this area is called the breadbasket of China - and eventually caught our first glimpse of the mighty Yangtze River as we approached Chongqing. The Yangtze in this area is virtually the dividing line between the rice growing area and the grain growing area of China, the grain being grown in the flatter areas between the river and the coast. After we got off the train, we once again joined the ... read more

We arrived in Hangzhou to weather that was slightly warmer again than Suzhou, after a two and a half hour trip, during which we dozed and read intermittently. We eventually found the queue for taxis, which was only about two hundred meters long, and snaked backwards and forwards inside well-defined barriers under a tin roof held up by rust and hope. On the way we were accosted by several “private” taxi drivers. These are people who own a car and offer to drive you in their “taxi” to your destination immediately, thereby avoiding having to queue up, but they also try to charge you up to ten times the usual taxi fare. Foreigners especially are targeted, because they are often naïve and also the Chinese seem to think that all foreigners are possessed of untold wealth ... read more

The prospect of going to England to see Andrew and Sue was exciting for us, as it had been almost twelve months since we said good-bye to them on Mallorca, and also because we had never before been to England, and were looking forward to greenery, clean air and blue skies! It was great to see Andrew’s smiling face when we at last got through customs at Heathrow when we arrived. Sue and her friend Christina were still in Cardiff, her graduation from Cardiff University having taken place the day before. Andrew drove us back to the house where he and Sue are renting a room from a young man who has a partner expecting a baby within a couple of months. They moved out into her place for the duration of our stay. The house ... read more