Hanming Chengde

... only upon arriving, was a waterfall from a small creek passing into the river we had been following. The amazing part of the waterfall was the way it came out of the cliff-side far above and fell over a series of ledges before settling.<br><br>I took the stone-steps to swaying metal-steps to rickety-half-missing wood-steps, path to the top alone. Halfway up, I stopped and a small pagoda and took pictures of the wonderful views of the rural valley in ...

... park with a big wall around it and a bunch of pagodas in the hills and lakes with islands and bridges passing out to them. Let's just say it's worth the 90rmb per person entrance fee we payed, and we spent most the day walking around only to see a small portion of the resort.<br><br> Leaving on quest for sustenance, we, post-success, traveled to one of Chengde's 7 outlying temples. These temples ...

... created an atmospheric, almost eerie, feel as the wall ascended sharply in front of me and then faded into the clouds, with just ocasional beacon towers looming out of the haze in the distance. It wasn't hard to imagine sentries in these watchtowers, shivering in the winter fog, arrows at the ready as they scanned the horizon for signs of Chinggis and his marauding Mongols. <br><br><br><br><br> Standing in a tower, surveying ...

... of the 'rural China' towns as we passed through. Unfortunately, they were with my cell phone camera since my camera didn't have new batteries yet and so they turned out quite poorly.<br>The county level town of Xiabancheng (aka Chengde County), is built much like Jinghai. By that I mean, it's a small town with relatively few people yet it is very compacted and so the town center is built up ...

... the rear of this stupa, we found a novel take on the way to present an offering - here they are represented by keyhole-less padlocks! Piles and piles of them had been fastened to every available anchor point, clustered over the chain railings lining the path up to a little temple and continuing inside to adorn every possible bar, bannister or power cable.<br><br>Someone asked me about the food out here. Well, as much as I love a good Chinese dinner on ...

... pork or just enjoy the experience if Sichuan Hotpot on a cold night and finish it off with drinking with the local on one of few small bar in Chengde. <br><br>Bishu Sanzhuang probably contain 10% main palace and 90% park. Woke up early in the morning to beat the tour group, Fortunelty it was covered with snow from the night before, making it more beautiful. the downside, it took me longer to cover the ground due to the slippery ground (I fell the ...

... that though, it is very impressive indeed. She has 42 arms, each with an eye carved into the palm. As for Chengde itself, we didn't have much chance to check it out. What we did see at night when we arrived though, was a mini Las Vegas of sorts. Flashing neon lights of buildings illuminated the city. It was quite a sight. Once we were satisfied with our sightseeing, we boarded a bus bound for Beijing and were back in our hotel before midnight.

... of the wall were in serious disrepair and it was a very up/down walk (certainly not one mum would like!) with the occasional scrambling! Despite the exertion, it was an incredible experience which we would recommend to anyone - have a look at the photos which are unlikely to do it justice!

... others off the tour were lead through to this seedy little room with red lighting. That was the first thing that intimidated me. Then, for an hour and a half a young Chinese girl, no more than six stone b************ out of me. She was so hard I was afraid, and she had a grip a rugby player would have been proud of. Amy on the other hand got a bloke who was gentle enough for her half way through to start snoring ...

... with a huge balancing rock. The Qing dynasty emperors in 18th century built a resort here with lakes to mimic the famously beautiful Yangtze delta gardens in Suzhou, Wuxi, and Zhenjiang, then built the lavish Tibetan Buddhist temples to entertain Mongolian and Tibetan nomadic chiefs here in an effort to maintain their loyalty to the Manchu Empire, the largest empire in Chinese history.