Hua Ying Mountain Hotel Guang'an

... taller then then average man... Not sure if thats a chinese man or a western man but its still pretty freaking tall.

We then headed back to the bus station and headed for Mt Emei, a famous Buddist mountain. We stayed in the Teddy Bear hotel which was quite nice and wandered around for a bit before heading to bed.

... de los más asombrosos logros de ingeniería de irrigación del planeta, y sigue utilizándose hoy en día. La región que rodea a Chengdu cuenta también con otros sitios de interés turístico, como la montaña de Emeishan, lugar sagrado del culto budista, así como la estatua de Buda erguido más grande del mundo, en Leshan. El Valle de los Nueve Pueblos, o Jiu Zhai Gou en chino, ha sido declarado Patrimonio Natural Mundial por la ONU.

So we get off the boat in Wanzhou and get a shuttle bus to the main bus station where we are put and I mean put on the bus. 2 aggressive old Chinese women shouting at us and manhandling us into our seats...... it was actually very funny. So 4 hours on a bus to get to our next location Chongqing where we where looking to catch a transfer to Chengdu.

... wind as we set off out the port.. There were a few stops along the first part of the journey to pick up other passengers but soon enough the engines roared and we set off at quite a pace which i was surprised about. The weather wasnt the best as the mist and smog levels were at an all time high and visibility was about 200m or so - the conditions did get better though as we went through the second of the 3 gorges. This trip was well worth the effort to organise ...

... board entertainment, if you've ever been to China you will know that everyone appears to go mad about karaoke, where taking part is all regardless of flare or ability. Well, I'm not sure whether it was the booze, but in a bizarre kind of way we actually found the traditional dance performed by the crew and following talent show kind of entertaining. The 3 Gorges themselves were not as dramatic as imagined, I think mainly because the water level had ...

... of so anything goes really, undertaking, overtaking on bends, tailgating - you name it the Chinese are doing it. My two particular favourites are the knackered old lorries that cruise up the highways at about 25mph in the outside lane oblivious to everything around them, and the people who use the hard shoulder to undertake everyone else on the road (these people sometimes get a shock as cars often drive the wrong way down the hard shoulder if it is not ...

... when we got to Chongqing itself. On arrival in Chongqing got on a Chinese tourist bus to do the city tour with a guide that spoke no English. First went to main people's square, onto a jewellery shop (the statutory stop on most Asian tours!) where we walked out of the 'demonstration' due to not understanding a word of it and then provoked a Chinese walk out as they weren't happy at being brought here ...

... dit een een soort toeristische attractie was, maar het is bittere noodzaak voor de inwoners. Het is een gewoon transportmiddel voor de locals, het ziet er wat vuil en onveilig uit. Maar onder het moto a l aventure nemen we hem toch maar. Tegen de avond stappen we op de boot. Hmmm, ziet er wat vies uit, en bijna geen westerlingen. We zullen wel zien het geeft.

... merken we meteen het verschil meteen met Hong Kong. De aankomsthal doet nogal 'putteke-afrikaans' aan. Buitengekomen worden we overspoeld door mensen die taxi of hotel aanbieden. We nemen de taxi naar de stad ; ook weer een hele afstand. Om de overgang met HK niet te groot te hebben, hebben we een redelijk chique (naar chineze normen) hotel genomen. Bij ons heb je daarvoor nog geen kamer in ...

This country certainly appears to posses an ancient romantic aire about it, the kind of land where you expect a dragon to appear from the sepia mist (smog!)or serpents to be crawling in droves beneath the undergrowth. I arrived this morning in Chongquing, about 40hours train trip from Hong Kong. The trip was slightly challenging to begin with, arriving in Guangzhou at about 7pm on a particularly rainy night I was ...