Merry Hotel Xichang

this was the start of our journey. Perhaps I should have known something like this was coming. The night before I had gone to dinner with some of the dorm mates and then a few of us went to the foreign bar "pan am" where we drank absinthe. So on my way home I was feeling pretty good. Eric called to confirm I wanted in on traveling to yading. This trip was supposed to be fairly cheap minus the 600 kuai plane ...

The on-going obsession with matriarchy in China among ethnic minorities, with a hint of curiosity about 'open relationships' . . . Matrilineal Chinese tribe strives to maintain 2,000-year-old tradition WengJici Erqing and Ruheng Cirenduoji grew up in households where grandmothers had absolute authority. Raised by their mothers and their uncles, neither knew his father well. This unique matrilineal family system followed by the Mosuo people for ...

Waa Waa Wee Waa, Posh and Becks have enetered the city! OK not quite posh and becks.................but me and the Jens have been causing quite a stir in this city whereever we go .....somewhat local celebrities you might say.......... we are in a small city with a population under 200,000 called Xichang (prounounced (Chitan)., Im not sure how many foreigners this place sees but i can tell you that the locals find us facinating...(we knew we were beig wasted back in england ...

... drive touring business in China. I'm not on a tour; rather I'm taking a rear seat on a research trip for Schindler's Sichuan-Yunnan itinerary: heading south from Chengdu, the capital of the south-west province of Sichuan, to Yunnan province towards the Laos-Vietnam border, then to the Yunnan capital, Kunming. More at http://www.smh.com.au/travel/travel-fea ture/slow-road-to-china-20090218-8ax6.h tml?page=-1

... The guy told me he would call today. I am sitting here a bundle of anxious nerves because of this. Why? The phone call is in Chinese. I have no met my boss yet, but I heard I was working for a technology company which makes me happy. Maybe I'll remember something about computers that is more advanced than making the internet work in our apartment everyday (which don't get me wrong, it is an arduous task). More on that later. But now I'll get to uploading some pictures.

... who was to be our mountain guide, after a bumpy ride in a minivan along a hazardous rocky mountain road. Our guide had infinite patience as she waited for me to struggle forward on the steep and at times perilously narrow ledge perched above the raging Yangtze River below. She had time to light up a cigarette and make a phone call on her mobile each time I stopped to catch my breath in the thin mountain air. When at last I climbed onto the rocky promontory named Tiger ...

... earthquake of 12 May 2008 that left more than 69,000 people dead and nearly 18,000 missing. On 30 August, China Earthquake Administration, ministry of civil affairs and its departments in Panzhihua and Yunnan launched emergency responses by sending various assessment teams to the earthquake affected areas. Panzhihua government officials rushed to the quake zone to direct relief efforts. Relief materials, including water, food and 300 tents, as well as ...

(Jim) On our arrival in Beijing we met the rest of our small tour group, a father and son on vacation from (wait for it) Pennsylvania. Lou and Andrew On the boat, we were at the same table with Andrew, Lou and three members of a family from Cape Town, South Africa. So between talking about doings in Pennsylvania and sharing stories (many borrowed from our friends in Jo'burg) it was kind of like old home week on our cruise boat, the Victoria Empress.

... here.) Fortunatly my room had a heater, unfortunatly it didn't work. I woke up to see my breath as well. The girl who showed me to my room told me that if I let the shower run for twenty minutes it should start turning hot. I never found out! Then she added, 'by the way, the hotel is closing down tomorrow!' As it turned out most of the town was 'closing down' the next day. At the moment Chinese New Year is about to kick off. This means 180 ...

... turban. There were a few elderly, probably highly respected characters in heavy jewelry or adorned with teeth and bones (shamanism is still present), but it wasn't exactly a riot of tribal splendour. Despite promising weather on arrival, after a couple of days things began to take a turn for the worse, and many of the villages we had wished to visit were inaccessible due to icy mountain roads, so we departed a little sooner than hoped for fear of getting trapped.