Mahjong to Hong Kong

After calming down from the panda experience, we arrived in the town of Chengdu, where there were lots of other nice things to see, as well as quite a few perculiarities.  

We explored a park near our hotel where we found the following:  

Groups of people singing folk songs, people feeding coy fish with a baby bottle on a stick (below), retired ladies practicing catwalking (this was after we had seen many groups of people randomly dancing in parks for exercise), a man using a samurai sword (below) and lots of people drinking tea and playing mahjong.

The tea and mahjong seemed like the most fun, so we joined them.  Our tour guide had already taught most of us how to play on one of the train journeys, however the locals had lots to teach us.

Rob had some good guidance from a fellow Guernseyite and quickly got the hang of it and was pleased when he won.  Kim on the right was reighning champion until this point..

We also visited the Leshan Buddha, the world's biggest Buddha (28m tall!), carved into a rock face.  Very impressive.  

Then we arrived at our home for the next few days, a Buddhist monestary (yes a real one) in Emeishan.  It was a bit more modern than expected as we were expecting very simple accommodation (our room had a tv).  There were plenty of buddhist vibe though with lots of worshippers both living and visiting the monestary and we even saw a glimpse of a ceremony where someone was becoming a buddhist.

Oddly found this Rema 1000 bag in the laundry (UK people - think a Tesco bag.. Guernsey people - think Checkers) - De har visst lave priser jorden rundt! :)

There was a mountain (Mt. Emei) nearby that we hiked part of the way up.  Really lovely scenery and carvings along the way.  

After the monestary we travelled further to reach Wanzhou to board our boat to cruise down the Yangtse river.  Again, not quite what we were expecting as the foyer had a huge crystal chandelier and we had a large  room with table, chairs and view of the river.  Very nice, just not the traditional wooden boat we were expecting.   

Along the way we saw the 'three gorges' and some they called the 'lesser gorges'.  

The smaller gorges were too narrow for our cruise boat, so we used smaller raft boats.  We soon found out that the 'driver' had a sense of humour..

The water was 175m deep, in case you don't believe us, here is a sign and a random stranded man to prove it..

This guy got lots of attention from us on the boat for his funny pipe, so had to include a picture of him.



Then we finally arrived in Yangshou which is a much smaller and lovely peaceful tourist village. 



 After eating lots and lots of Chinese food, here we got to cook some for ourselves!

Christine ready for the action

 As is Rob...

And here is the finished article.. it was even yummier than it looked.  Christine was particularly proud of being able to make dumplings, even if the folding technique took a bit of practice..

 We also got a taste for the nightlife in the town with one bar even serving much missed cider (!!).  Rob was challenged by a bar lady to play connect 4 with her.  If he won he could order any drink on the menu for free.  

This is what Rob looks like when he gets a free drink

There was also some more fun cycling around some beautiful countryside.  This is a rare picture of the entire group together.

Rob and Christine on a bridge during the cycling trip..

Christine took some pictures of local people and water buffalo.  

In the middle of the cycling trip we took the opportunity to take a bamboo raft down the river.  This was a great way to take in the mountain scenery as well as just relax in the sun!

...and hang out with the raft punters (people driving the rafts basically).  It's funny how language barriers don't matter much when you buy your punter a beer.  In return he showed me how to open peanuts.  (Oh, and yes this is a 'cafe' on a raft in the middle of the river).

Cycling back to Yangshou..

One of the other main attractions in Yangshou was an amazing night play.  The set of the play is the river and the mountains behind the river are used as the backdrop.  There are hundreds of (mostly) local people acting, dancing and singing in the play, with a few professionals.  The lighting and effects were amazing.  The whole thing was directed by the same guy who directed the Beijing Olympic opening ceremony, and the grandness was comparable!

The mountains in the background are real and at varying distances from the 'stage'.  It's difficult to capture it properly in a photo unfortunately..

People in sync with flames..

Dancer depicting a Chinese legend lady who lives on the moon.. I think she's like cupid is in the west.

Each person in this sequence was fitted with a dress of lights.  Each person was light up and turned off in sync with the music, very impressive!

A bit more impressive than me with my head lamp on (on train earlier in the trip).. Thanks to Richard for the head lamp, it came in great handy when all lights were turned off at 22.00!

Our final destination on the tour was Hong Kong.  We started by having a final dinner with the group.  Some of us moved on to see the harbour light show.  Below is the beautiful Hong Kong skyline.

We also visited the centre of town for some drinks and eventually ended up in a bar which had live music and as many peanuts as you could eat (in the below picture, the stuff on the floor is peanut shells.. not all ours though!).

We also took the cable car to see the view of the whole city before going to a fish and bird market.

After this, we left our the final members of the tour group and soon left Hong Kong for our next destination, Malaysia.

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So final points on China, in summary, what did we learn?

1. China is a huuuge beautiful country.  You hear about that there are lots of people, and there are literally billions of them, and they are very friendly, yet shrewd.

2. Queueing culture hasn't quite reached China yet (I think it got stuck trying to work on Norway to be honest) so our motto when with a big group of people was "No Gaps!!" (or else the gap would be filled with 3 Chinese people).

3. Don't take toilet seats, toilet paper, bread (unless you like sweet bread) or personal space for granted.  We had a bit of warning on most of the above before we left, but it's funny how much joy Hong Kong was just for having all of these in abundance.

4. We evidently look like celebrities, judging by the number of pictures that were taken of us ;) .  This part of the trip was very strange until the very end.. and often you wonder if your face would end up on a Chinese mantlepiece somewhere, which is a bit disturbing.

5. Continental Europeans (including the Norwegian) find it hard to turn down beer when it is the same price as soft drinks.. even if it is 11 in the morning.

6. There aren't many Guernsey people, yet 3/15 on the tour! 

7. Having a tour member who is over 6ft (1,82m) in China is very useful for navigation!

8. There is always a Subway (even at the bottom of the great wall).  Could they not at least pretend that it was an authentic Chinese eatery instead?

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So that concludes our China leg of the trip.. next post will introduce Malaysia with concrete, beaches and lots of wildlife!