Hiking Mt Emei in Sichuan China – Day 1

This is a trail map for Mt Emei (Emei Shan) in Western Sichuan. I say “a” trail map because it is one of three that I’ve seen – all of which are different. The hike from START to END (as marked on the map above) might have been 45km or it could have been as Read the Rest…

Tea In Chengdu

You have to like a city where one of the major tourist attractions is called the “Wuhou Temple”. Chengdu is the capital of Sichuan province in central China, you’ve probably heard of it because of its’ native pandas. Damn pandas.

Views of Nanjing

It seems that every Chinese city of any size has a hotel or office tower where you can go look out on the expanse of the city. This is Nanjing from the top of one such.

Drunken Chinese Dudes

I stepped into the elevator and realized that I was really tired. It had been a long travel day: a three-hour bus journey, four hours in Lanzhou and then a six-hour train journey from Lanzhou to Zhangye. My eyes closed in a mini-power-nap. The elevator stopped at the third floor and two short, squat, middle-aged Read the Rest…

Independent Travel In China

What was I so worried about? Before we came to China I was genuinely concerned about visiting this vast and diverse country. I think the language was my biggest fear. Language and lettering. As a (self-acknowleged) control freak I think I was bothered that I’d potentially be truly lost all the time.

The Farmer Who Discovered The Terracotta Warriors

On our bus ride from central Xi’an to the Terracotta Warriors Museum our tour guide, Helen, shared with us some information about the history of Xi’an and the surrounding area. She cracked herself up when she searched for the English word for rooster and then, giggling, explained that China is shaped like a rooster and Read the Rest…

Riding The Maglev In Shanghai

It feels utterly nerdy and geeky to buy tickets for a train for no other reason than to ride that specific train. The image of a classic British anorak-wearing, bespectacled trainspotter was not far from my mind as Murph was buying our tickets for the Maglev to Shanghai’s Pudong airport. We weren’t flying out of Read the Rest…

Buying Train Tickets In China

China’s new super-fast trains are a fantastic way to travel. My guidebook (Rough Guide China 2008 ) lists the journey time from Shanghai to Nanjing as four hours. Hah! It now takes one hour thirty minutes traveling at mostly 248 km/h all the way. As we got off the train yesterday, BigB questioned why America Read the Rest…

Not For Everyone

In my mid-trip guest post for the TheVacationGals, I end by saying that a trip such as ours is not for everyone. That comment has bugged me since because I don’t clarify why I think this is the case.