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Published: November 29th 2009
Travelling
So, we have just had our first solo travelling experience in China. All went well, though bits felt very adventurous! Sarah, a friend from downstairs (in our stairwell) came with us and we headed out to Tianshui in eastern Gansu, about 3hrs on the train. Booking our tickets was the first trial as we don't know enough Chinese to sort out tickets and Chinese train stations are insane - v. busy and lots of pushing and shouting :s Andrew had the great idea of writing the details of the tickets we wanted out in Chinese characters from the phrase book and it worked perfectly! so we were feeling rather smug until we had to sprint for and then cram into the train, we ended up in the restaurant cart (for an extra fee) the whole journey! Tianshui is a beautiful city - less industrial than Lanzhou, though still 3 million people. We stayed in Tianshui the next day (also mid-autumn day/mooncake day which is a big festival here) and explored it's 2 biggest temples which were v. pretty and quite well restored. They had many v. old cypress trees - some as old as 1500 yrs old (though we're not
Many Fish!
And that is the main river running through the centre of the city. You wouldn't see this in the Yellow River!quite sure we believe the sign) which alot of the buildings were constructed around - holes in the roofs so they didn't have to cut the tree down to build it which was interesting.
The next day we headed south to Moon Canyon, a national park around 4 hrs south by bus. We managed the ticket process fairly successfully again, and headed out into rural China. 3 hrs on a bus, 40min in a minibus (which 8 ladies decided to hire to get us and them to a small village - very nice of them to look after us, and then another minivan for 20min to take us to Moon Canyon. This minivan then got stuck in a traffic jam in the middle of nowhere so we got out to find the road had foot deep trenches in it and a truck was stuck, so we all helped push the truck out (us and a village of Chinese ppl) before getting our own minivan stuck too, so out we got again to push it out! We finally arrived at Moon Canyon and were given a very cheap cabin in the middle of the forest on the side of the
Yuquan Temple (Jade Spring Temple
The entrance to a huge temple complex on the hillside above the cuty hill, very beautiful, and the cleanest nicest accommodation we have seen in China so far - definitely a success! We spent the afternoon walking up the canyon in hot sunshine (very lucky this time of year) and swimming in the river pools. The next day more anyone explorations in the beautiful countryside before back to Tianshui in the evening.
The next day we went just outside of Tianshui to see the Buddhist grottoes of Maiji Shan - one of 4 famous Buddhist cave grottoes in China. This is a mountain with a huge cliff face carved with huge Buddha’s and many smaller caves with more Buddhist carvings all the way up the cliffs. To see them you climb fairly rickety stairs and walkways which wind up the cliff face - luckily none of us were afraid of heights! In the afternoon we walked round the national park around the grottoes but the weather gave in and it poured with rain, so very cold and wet we returned to Tianshui for one last meal before home again the next day.
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