Blogs from Ya'an, Sichuan, China, Asia

Hi All, Back on the road again. This summer we're travelling through western Sichuan down into Yunnan. First stop is in a small village on the edge of the Tibetan plateau called ShangLi about half an hour outside of Ya'an. Some of the bridges around the village date from the late 17th century. The village has been spruced up for the tourist trade but it still retains it's rural charm. Just outside of the village is a rambling 200 year old courtyard house. For a 5 RMB fee an old man, whose house the family belongs to, will show you around this impressive building completely in its original condition. Some of the carvings were incredible. He told us his family had moved down from the north of China and became merchants of silk and salt. They ... read more

GapGuru Panda Project China First off, let me start by saying that this blog was created in order to inform other persons on what to expect if they intend to undertake the Panda project in China, specifically in the Ya’an Bi feng xia Base, Chengdu, Sichuan area. It is not my intention to indiscriminately criticise any aspect of the project or put anyone off from going to this base camp. However, there are a number of details that are not included, deliberately or not, by the organisers, which I feel are very important in your consideration. In this case our project was undertaken with GapGuru (Futuresense) in the UK. At the base we met with other persons from other countries, who also had similar “lack of communications or problems” from their own project organisers. At the ... read more

Our guide told us that the ancient Chinese believed that China was created by the first woman on earth, a Chinese Eve (I can’t remember the Chinese name), when Eve got to Ya’an she was so tired from making the rest of China that she didn’t finish building the roof & that is why it always rains in Ya’an, because the roof is leaking. When we left Chengdu to go to Ya’an you could actually see the weather deteriorating with every passing mile, at one point it was raining so much that it looked misty, when I looked out of the window of the car I couldn’t seen any buildings because of the mist all I could see was the floor about ten feet around the car and the rain coming down around us, this is ... read more