Today was our last day of sightseeing in China (tomorrow is our last day, but it will only be packing and airport transit). Today was one my personal highlights of this trip (along with the Great Wall, Riding the Xi’an city walls, Terracotta army) as we visit the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain. The mountain has several peaks (from memory, somewhere in the 30’s) the highest just under 5,600m. The mountain has been climbed (successfully) once in 1987, the Chinese government allowed a Japanese expedition a few years ago, but many of them died on the mountain. Since then, it is forbidden to climb the mountain, also it is sacred to the local people. We went to a meadow which is around 3,200 meters above sea level (the highest I have been!). In the meadow there is ... read more

After breakfast in Kunming we left for Lijiang. Of all the flights in China so far, I haven’t managed score a window seat to view the passing scenery from the plane window. The flight from Kunming to Lijiang is the window seat that I was hoping for, but alas I was unsuccessful. However my sister got a window, and wasn’t interested in relinquish it to me, ohh well too bad, maybe next time (I was of course annoyed as she slept for half of the 40 minute flight!!). Today is our first day in Lijiang city, situated in the north west of the Yunnan province and an altitude of around 2,500m above sea level. This is the highest I have been on terra firma. The Lijiang area is the home to the Naxi/Nakhi minority people, which ... read more

Our last day in Guilin was a later start then normal before we did our last tourist stop in this city, the Reed Flute Caves. It is my sister’s birthday today, at some stage our group sang Happy Birthday on the bus, she was a little bit embarrassed. The caves are one of the major attractions in the city of Guilin and are located fairly close to the city itself. The local people have used the caves for centuries including during World War II when the locals hide in the caves when the Japanese invaded the city. There are some very cool features in the cave including a fairly large open area that is called the Crystal Palace. They have done a pretty good job in the cave with the lights highlighting certain rock formations to ... read more

Our 15th day in the far east was also our last morning on the Sunshine China cruise ship before it docks in the early morning in Chongqing (the sister city of my hometown Brisbane). We only had a half day in Chongqing before heading off to Guilin after lunch. We docked in this huge city with a population over 30million (well the municipality of Chongqing) around 8 am. Of course we get the standard merchants when you get off any form of transport trying to sell some sort of kite, map, scarf, jade etc. We headed off to the Chongqing Zoo to see the handful of panda’s they have in their compound. Due to some time restraints, we had around an hour in the zoo before we headed off to a park for a tea drinking ... read more

Today was a bit of a drive out to the area where the Terracotta Warriors were discovered back in 1974. On the way we stopped off to one of many Terracotta Warrior factories located in the area where you can buy replicas of the actual warriors from 15cm to the actual size of 2m tall. They also showed how the warriors would have been made which was interesting. We arrived at the Terracotta Warriors Museum around 10:30am, the place is massive with 3 pits opened to the public a museum with various brass and other items. I won’t bore you with too many details about the warriors as there is a lot of information out there about them. I was surprised how big the pits were (well pit 1 and 2) and how many warriors they ... read more