Tragical loss

My beloved laptop is gone. Along with my Romanian passport. I have forgot it in the hostel in Kunming, China. While I do have double backup of all the pictures, I did loss some priceless personal files. Now great stories from my 10 years immigrant life will be left untold and unheard.
Now I have a bit more time to enjoy the life and a bit less weight and things to worry about.

Lijiang (21.06.09)

Lijiang is an UNESCO site. The old city looks a lot like Dali; the difference are that the streets are narrow and have many turns and there are few canals filled with running water. The city is so crowded and full of tourists. There is one street full of bars, one after another.
One of the attractions is the Black Dragon Pool. Is a park with a nice lake; there is an arched bridge accross it and a pagoda. I also climb the Elephant hill from where I had a panoramic view across the city. I didn't find anything in the new Lijiang city; just a tipical big chinese city.

I went to the north of the city to visit Baisha but I was dissapointed. Another day I went to the west ot the city to visit a traditional village. The view from the hills was nice, but we couldn't find anybody home.

Tiger Leaping Gorge (15.06.09)

This is definetely the nicest hike I had on this vacation. It was somehow easy and the scenery was so beautiful. The first park was a gentle but long slope. After lunch I had to put a little effort to go up few hundred meters. The last part of the hike in the first day was pretty much at the same level, more like a walk in the park. At the guesthouse I stayed I had a well deserved beer. The mountains on the other side of the gorge are majestic. The conds part of the hike was very easy, I just went down.

The legend says that the gorge is so narrow a tiger could leap from one side to the other (using a big rock in the middle of the river). The rock seems to be the main attraction of the place, since I saw around 30 buses full of tourists who came to see it.

Shangri La (13.06.09)

One of the last cities toward the Tibetan world is Shangri La. It is said that the city is an actual tibetan city, even though is not in Tibet, but in the Yunnan Province. City is located at 3200 m altitude. Sky seems closer. The old town is made of wooden building. I do not know if is a chinese style or tibetan style. On a Saturday evening I saw traditional dancing in the central square. There is a tibetan temple on the hill, at the edge of the old town, and next to it there is a rotating golden tower with religious symbols on it.

Few kilometers north of the city there is the biggest tibetan monastery outside of the Tibet (Songzanli). The scenery around is breathtaking.

Dali (09.06.09)

I have been so lazy. I came to this small relaxing city named Dali and stayed 9 days. It's like a big village, situated at hig altitude (around 2000m). I stayed in the old city. It is very commercial - every single house has a business on the first flo0r. Plenty of tourist on the street, mostly chinese. A couple of day I rented a bike and cycled arround. I have been through rice fields to the Erhai lake and arround. I made it to the new town which is not interesting at all.

I did a bit of climbing on the nearby mountain (Cangshan). The faimous site is the Three Pagodas.

Kunming (01.06.09)

I travelled quite a bit lately. I returned from Osaka to Shanghai (2 days on cruise ship). I took a train to Hangzhou (to see a friend), and then a train to Kunming (2 days). I have seen from the train a dozen of beautiful little villages.

I didn't like Kunming at all. It's a big city, very crowded and commercial. I just stayed for the day. There is a beautifull park named Green Lake.

Censorship in China

I came back to China and to my surprise I could NOT access my blog anymore. Goverment of China has decided is best to block few sites. I think they were afraid of a rise, since it was approaching the 20 years anniversary of Tienamen massacre. For few days they even blocked the hotmail too.

I took the picture bellow in Chongquing on 29/04/09 . It is a poor guy who set himself on fire because he didn't get the money the goverment owed him (according to the letters he left on the site). In this case, I do believe this is stupid and this doesn't neccessary needs to be seen on news (bloody car accidents with plenty of deads are more popular).

Bye the way, the guy wasn't dead...just burned to some degree. Police didn't arrest anybody.

Shanghai (08.05.09)

Shanghai is an hour train ride from Hangzhou. It's a very big city and crowded, modern, and in some way amazing. I wen to see all the main attractions, and 2 days was enough. I went first the the old town, where are traditional chinese buildings - now all shops. I went and visited a old garden. Then I went to the so called french quarter, where there are of course french-built houses. The main attraction on the city is the area around the river. The east side is known as the bund. There are many buildings from 30', mainly banks or tradehouses, with european architecture. Around the city there are also many european looking buildings, from 30'. The other side of the river is full of modern buildings. One icon of the city is the Oriental Pearl TV tower. A new is the Shanghai Finance Center tower, the tallest building here (and 3rd in the world at 450 m), easy recognized by the shape with a square hole at the top. A well known area for shopping is the Nanjing Street East. In the end I stayed 5 days since my travel plan changed.

Hangzhou (03.05.09)

I have arrived in Hangzhou by a night train from Yichang. After I found accommodation relative close to the West Lake Park, I rented a bicycle and went to visit the park. I didn't expect not to be allowed with the bicycle in the park, but I could understand why: there were so many people in the park, would be very annoying for pedestrians. However, I did sneak up on the Sudi causeway, which is a very long street crossing the lake. From place to place I would get off the bicycle and walk around. I was so impressed with the beauty of the park, I was counting my days and trying to see if is possible to spend one more day. The smell of the tree and flowers was so strong it took me a while to stop sneezing. I have to say that this is one of the most beautiful parks I ever seen. There are many different gardens, so many alleys I could probably walk an entire day and still not see anything. There is a big pagoda (Leifeng) I wish I had time to visit. The park is very clean and well maintained. I don't know about the city - I only saw it for short time from the bus - but the park itself is well worth the trip here.

Expenses (Yuan)
bus 2
room 75
dinner 13
food 36
bicycle rental 10

Yangtze River cruise (02.05.09)

The boat left the Congquing dock at 9pm. The view of the city was nice, unfortunately it was raining. Early in the morning was a little bit better - the rain has stopped but it was still foggy. The boat stopped at Fengdu - the City of Ghosts, and then went on. In the evening stopped at Zhang Fei Temple. For the entire day the weather wasn't good. It was interesting to see towns and factories along the river.
The next day was the best part of the trip. First the boat went through Quatang Gorge. I guess on a good day the view would be great, but because was foggy couldn't see too far and clear. The cliffs around were so green. Around noon the boat stopped and we transfered on a smaller boat, for the Little 3 Gorges. I liked this 6 hour trip even more than the main cruise. The gorges are narrower and cliffs seems taller. This trip included a small cruise (40 minutes) to mini gorges, where we took much small boat and went around a very narrow river. On the way back we saw some monkeys on the cliffs
On the last day we went through Wu Gorge - it was the most impressive gorge on the Yangtze River, and the cliffs around were spectacular. There were many caves and waterfalls along. The boat didn't reach the famous dam, I just saw it from the bus to Yichang.

Expenses (yuan)
noodles 16
breakfast 15
beer 9
fruits 5
water 4
food 10
train ticket 360
icecream 10
dinner 15

Chongquing (29.04.09)

From Xian I took a night train to Chongquing. I have arrived there in the morning, and I booked a 3 days cruise on the Yangtze river. Since the cruise was starting at 9pm, I had many hours to spend in this city. I have walked around the central area for a couple of hours. I have witness an unpleasant event near the Rolex clock tower I might (or might not) talk about later. I also had time to catch an movie and to do some shopping. I didn't expect this city to be so big and modern, with so many big malls all around. Later I found out that there are about 5 million people living there.

Expenses (Yuan)
breakfast 5
cruise ticket 680
movie 30
clothes 95
drinks 5
lunch 25

Xian (28.04.09)

I have spent a couple of days in this town. I guess is not much to say about it, pretty much is like any big cities in China. What's different about it is that the city walls are intact and still standing. They are about 10 meters tall and 2-3 wide. The attractions of the city are: the bell tower, a big pagoda and a mosque that has some chinese architecture.