China 27 May - 10 June 2013

             Lijiang with its cobbled streets, maze of canals, 354 bridges and ancient narrow streets brings in around 5 million tourists per year – 99% of which are local Chinese. Even so it was a nice experience

             Dancing for exercise and for social enjoyment is a regular occurrence at any time of the day. In this case a local group in their traditional costume enjoy a number for their own benefit and not the tourists

Unfortunately Guy and Cheryl picked the wrong end of this car park to camp with two groups of dancers on either side of them starting at 0530 

      
  Lake Lugu at 2000 metres and a camp site beside the lake made for a peaceful two days of no driving and enjoying the local sights. Even though it was remote there were still plenty of Chinese tourists making the most of the clean mountain air away from the heavy population and pollution of the east

          The Yi people are one of the 50 odd minority groups and proudly wear their traditional dress. Interestingly the Government supports the minority groups with special privileges such as university entrance and more lenience towards a second child in contradiction to the single child policy. To me, surprisingly to even have Yi as a separate language used on road signs within their province 

          National expressways have been a huge development over the last decade or more with super roads being built right across the country. Their approach seems to be to bridge all valleys and tunnel through mountains. Five kilometre tunnels and 10% of roads in the form of tunnels appear to be the norm. Tolls are expensive though at around $30 for 200klms

        I’m told there are 230 million vehicles on Chinese roads with 1600 new vehicles per day being added. These car trailers seem to testify to that with 28 cars on board and I might say…….

    …….. dangerously wide at the top and dangerously long in length! A bit like Chinese drivers except they’re a bit short on top and dangerously short in driving safety!  In fact according to a report by WHO the Chinese road toll is 600 deaths per day!

    

             Emei Shan is a cool misty mountain retreat in Sichuan Province and one of China’s most famous Buddhist mountains. Plenty of beautiful scenery and quiet temples……. well, apart from thousands of Chinese holiday maker

          Just one of the many temple urns for burning your prayer candle

       Who said you need a big truck to carry a big load!

         The Grand Buddha at Leshan is reputed to be the biggest Buddha statue in the world. The Taliban took care of the competition for the title by blowing up the Buddha carvings in Afghanistan. At over 100metres in height and carved out of a solid rock face, it’s an impressive sight

From the top it’s a long way down to his feet at the river!

            Next on the itinerary was Ya’an and the panda base but the earth quake in January put paid to that so instead it was a visit to the panda breeding centre in Chendu. What a splendid setup for breeding and research and as you can see the pandas aren’t complaining

         This young lady was quite content to sit chewing on her lunch of bamboo while contemplating the tourists

         The red panda which looks more like a fox to me and about the same size is also endangered and under the breeding program. It lives between the eastern Himalaya and China and exists on a diet of bamboo like the giant panda

           We traveled through picturesque Hubei Province towards the Three Gorges Dam

Finally reaching the famous Yangtze River with its now high water mark of 74 metres from the dam further downstream. It continues to be a major trade route with dozens of barges and passenger boats traveling up and down

          A camp beside the Yangtze and the bar-b-que gets a work out

          This camp on the Yangtze was actually on a coal shute. Coal mined in the area is dumped over the edge of where we sit to slide down into barges below    

       Finally the famous Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River. Claimed to be the world’s biggest and most technically difficult dam. Controversially built for flood control, increased river navigation and hydro power generation.

        Unfortunately the ever present smog and pollution which is choking the low lying industrial land meant that it was almost invisible from a mere distance of two kilometres

 

            It contains one of the world’s most sophisticated lock systems with five locks both up and down lifting boats 113 metres from top to bottom – very impressive!