Blogs from Sichuan, China, Asia - page 2

The water village where there is a main canal and many Baby canal branches off of it was the original transport of this village , there were no roads boats were the soul method of communication. Quyuan Garden (Yu Yue) 1821-1907 was a Confucian scholar of the late Qing Dynasty the late ruling dynasty in Chinas long history. he was a teacher, an educator and more than 30 years was the director of the Gujing Jingshe academy. He spent his life studying and interpreting the Chinese Confucian classics and publishing many distinquished academic text on them. His house is in the for of a two story Chinese tower and is set amid gardens piled with rocks, fish ponds and pavilions where no doubt he sat and quietly contemplated the mysteries of confusion philosophy.... read more

August 2nd - Heading to Aba - Dia 42 Woken up in the middle of the night by the surrounding Yaks becoming more curious. Had to hit the tent and shout a couple of times throughout the night since I literally had a yak next to my face. Almost around dawn Leonardo and I went outside to pii. Once we got back in the tent we started hearing, who knows how many yaks licking desperately at our pii. This sound continued for maybe an hour... Waking up first I got out of the tent to see the woman already working in the field. Both young woman were picking up fresh yak poops and placing them in a huge basket they had tied around their back. One was picking it up with her gloved hands! What a ... read more

Hi All, With only one day in Daocheng we decided to hire an ebike and go for a ride around. The ebike cost 80 RMB for a day. We went out in the morning to visit ZhuJie temple which overlooks the main road from Daocheng to Litang. The journey there goes through some very pretty Tibetan villages and the road up to the temple is very windy and steep. The temple's was all shut because there was no electricity but a monk did let us into the main prayer hall and took us upstairs where there were some statues of Shakyamuni buddha and of the founder of the temple. The paintings on the walls were so colourful with many tantric images. After visiting the hall we had a walk up the mountain to see some of ... read more

Hi All, The altitude makes it difficult but it is so worth it. Only planned to stay here a few days but a man informed us that next week there will be a horse racing festival so we've decided to stay on a little longer. Litang is a dusty town on the Chengdu - Lhasa highway resting at about 4000 metres, around 13,000 feet in old money, above sea level. The population is largely Tibetan but there are also quite a few Han Chinese and some Qiang Chinese. Today had a slow walk up to the monastery which overlooks the town. The monastery has been destroyed twice in recent history, once when it was bombed in 1956 by the PLA when the locals rose up against collectivization in the Great Leap Forward and it was finished ... read more

Hi All, Close to Kangding is the town of Luding. Luding has a Qing dynasty chain suspension bridge which was the scene of a battle in the Chinese Civil War. Red Army soldiers took the bridge and thus secured a safe passage over the Yangtze river allowing them to head north through the mountains of Sichuan. They were very brave men indeed to shimmy along the chains, as the wooden boards had been removed, whilst under rifle and machine gun fire. It made me feel a little queasy just walking over it. There is also a Monument Hall for the battle with information about the Long March. I must admit it felt a little run down, the gardens were untidy and the buildings dirty and after half an hour we were told the electric had been ... read more