Kangding project is at the end point of Mt. Minya Konka trekking. So I suggest to use this proejct for the team choose the Mt. Minya Kongka trekking.
Shangmuju center school
Shangmuju village
shangmuju village
shangmuju local people
Shangmuju school
Thanks to the China High-speed Railway between Chongqing and Chengdu, I manage to get home within 2 hours journey on the train for my spring festival.
In the past. the train from Chongqing to Chengdu need 8 hours, and 4 years ago, the time reduce to 4 hours. And last year Oct, the High-speed railway between make this trip short to 2 hours. What a great progress.
There has two new magnificent new bridges in Chongqing:
Chaotianmen Bridge:
Caiyuanba bridge
Chongqing Hongya cave：
One of the local building of Chongqing are the houses built at the foot of the hills or along hillsides. below is the picture of the old Chongqing.
In the Hongya cave, there are many local food:
Chongqing has many cable car over the Changjiang and Yangtse River, Yes, it’s a real fantastic journey on that.
Chongqing night view：
Below are the compared picture of the Chao Tian Men:
At this moment, i nearly can’t remember the thing happened last year of my trip to Tibet. However, i will try to provide the necessary information.
As most foreigners may aware, the foreigner need to get the Tibet entrance permits to get into Tibet. So first you have to choose a in-country agent to help deal with this thing. Here i would like to update news that the foreigners may not need to apply the Tibet entrance permits if they don’t visit any scenery spot in Tibet. This feedback was from my guide last year in a self-driving tour group. He said there were 3 foreigners drove the bike from Lhasa to Zhangmu and they take trains from Chengdu to Lhasa. I doubt their words, however, the things is very complex at this moment. I’m not sure if the foreigner can get into Tibet without permits. So far as I know, even the chinese, we need to show our ID card with the train tickets together before getting on the train, and also, the train station staff will take the picture of both the ID card as well as the train tickets.
So Let’s back to the railway journey on the train. From Chengdu to Tibet,it can be divided into two parts,Sichuan to Shanxi ( none Tibet section) Xining-Lhasa (Tibet area section). I find out some information on the wiki Qingzang railway. This railway is known as the highest altitude railway on earth.
some pictures on the rail way.
The whether in Thailand is nice in Nov,it’s the beginning of the high season. In Day 02, we take the big ship to PP island. after 2 hours journey on the ship, we arrived the PP island. As we all know the disaster seaquake happend there, however, they recovered very well and this is still a nice place.
We rent a speed boat to the sea and do the snorkeling. Many clown anemonefish around us and chased for the bread chipping from our guide MR.Yang.
There are monkey island, mosquito island and the lover beach. The sand-beach there is different from the phuket island. The sand is like milk color and the hand feel is very fine and smooth. I suppose it is made from the coral. In fact. the coral as well as the sand beach are been protected very well. We are not allowed to take away the coral.
I have a little nausea and they stop on a small island which named ” small monkey island” . The monkeys are not afraid of the strangers, they came to us and rob our food. One of the monkey even bite the leg of my friend Julia. what a nightmare.
We go back to the main PP Island before dusk, and had dinner nearby the sea. The night market in PP island is very bustling. We walk every interest alley and finally we arrive at the beach on another side of the PP island. We can see the lighting and thunder in the clouds far away from the sea level. Sit down on the sand and enjoy the sea breeze.
Happy New Year to everyone! Best wishes！
KarenLee
In Dec.2009, i have received 4 individual motorcycle self-driving tour inquires in China. Here i would like to list some information about the self-driving tour in China.
1. The Chinese government paper work. If the foreigners wants to drive their own vehicle to China, they should first find an in-country agency to help them deal with the process of Chinese government. And Vietnam also has this rule. It’s not so free like drive the vehicle in other countries. China has many restrictions in this field.
2. The prepare time period. For me, i need at least 3 month to apply the government permits for our guests. And once i do this, it means the guests has already paid the first payment to us. So the prepare time including the talking through the emails, it need at least 4-6 months in advance.
3. According to the chinese law, it’s necessary to have a guide accompany the whole journey. And if you drive the motorcycle or the whole team are combined by motorcycles, then the in-country agency have to send a guide vehicle to you. Because they can’t take risk to ask the guide sit back to the motorcycles. This part will raise the costs too much because of the guide vehicle.
4.In China, Motorcycle is not allowed to drive on highway, and this will add the difficulty of crossing most big cities.
So if you are plan the motorcycle self-driving tour in China. First, please contact the in-country agency as early as you can. And the most important, please be sure your heart is well prepared for seeing the high price from the in-country agency. If there just has 1 or 2 motorcycles group, I don’t suggest you choose this way to travel in China unless you have another normal vehicle to go with you. Or you just want to waste your money.
These days, i’m busy in dealing with the 2010 tour request to Ejinaqi. Below are some useful information for the reference.
1. Foreigners need to find a local agency to get the entrance permits. Because Ejinaqi area is cover the Jiuquan ( launch center) and it’s the military area of China. So it need the special permits to enter Ejinaqi. And the foreign travellers are not allowed to visit Jiuquan Launch Center.
2.The most beautiful period of Ejinaqi (Khara Koto）if from Sep to Oct. And if you want visit those places, please arrange the travel time before the mid Sep. Becasue there will have Huyanglin festival there in later Sep to early Oct. The hostl room can’t guarantee in thoese period. The room rate will be over 500 RMB/per room, and just has 2 hotels there with 3 stars’ level. Even you are willing to pay 500 RMB/ per, you may also have no room to get.
3. After visit Ejinaqi, you can choose to visit Badain Jaran desert nearly by. The see the Badain Jaran lake and temple as well as the Mt. Everest sand dune. You need to change to use the 4×4 beijing jeep and only the well-trained drivers can manage this kind of vehicle running in the desert.
4. You can choose to take the normal vehicle back to Alex Youqi which is the entrance of the desert. However, that will take a long day driving from Ejinaqi to Alex Youqi which will take about 700 KM driving distance. The other choice is to cross the desert directly from Ejinaqi to Alex Youqi. There will cost 3 days and 2 nights in the desert. And the second choice’s vehicle fee will double than the first choice.
In my schedule, i should write the Sichuan-Tibet tour this year, however, there are too many pictures drive me dizzy. So here I would like to share my Phuket Island tour first.
The departure date is 11th.11 which is the “single person day” in China, and I go with my 3 friends, total 4 people head to Thailand Phuket island.
We chose the 6 day 5 night package tour and all our journey was companied by a local Chinese speaking guide.
The first day is to visit the Phang Nga. Of course, the most famous is the “007″ island, there is a stone like a “cabbage” and there are a special kind of fish “mudskipper” as well as “cartoon crab” with colorful pincers waving to you.
We have lunch at the Sea Muslim Village. and then back to Phuket island. When we went to Siam Safari and the staff there are very kind, they help us to take photos. At this time, i have to say, 20B as the service fee is really not a big deal and the staff will take pictures when you are on the elephant. You can choose to keep the picture or not. Most people feel very unhappy because they feel they were pushing to buy their photos which they didn’t suppose to take.
And later we require the guide Phi Yang took us to buy the fruit, wa~~~really nice fruit and the price is also very nice and we feel shame to bargain. Nuts factory has many kinds of nuts, one of my favorite is wasabi taste.
I have to say that, the ice cream is very cheap in Thailand. it make me feel i wast lots of money to buy the Haggen-Daz and DQ in China. However, i’m really not so that into the ice cream, so just have one taste. Not bad.
I prefer the fish ball with Vermicelli, this is a special local delicacies. Well, i feel hungry now~ please enjoy the pics of Day o1.
My winter team achieved a great success, just like the leader say ” excellent trekking”. The volunteer project in liming school is also seems ok. Thanks all guides and staff who had put effort in this field.
In fact, 4 Days of trekking is not only in Tiger Leaping Gorge. First they trek from Shuhe Ancient to Wenhai and then to Longpan. and the rest 2 days is in Tiger Leaping Gorge. I have written an article about the closure of the Tiger Leaping Gorge. It’s true and the road maintain cost lots of troubles when we run the team.
For me, I do think Tiger Leaping Gorge is not like before, and the Tiger leaping Gorge stone is not so breathtaking when you seeing it. As the government is building the water and electricity station there. It almost destroyed most beautiful scenery on the road.
One day morning, a black dog followed the Team to the Tiger leaping Gorge. my guide first thought it was a dog belongs to the horseman. And later, the local people told a story about this dog.
The dog is belong to a foreigner who is an Australian “Mar jane”(transliteration) She fell in love with a local Tibetan guy Mr.Xia in 1996 and then they get married in Lijiang. They have a hostel name “Shanquan” which is the given name of Mr.Xia. About 4 or 5 years ago, they adopted a little black dog. And they love that dog very much. However, Mar Jane died in sickness in Mt.Meili. in recent year. Since then, people find out that the black dog wait at Tiger Leaping Gorge and followed the visitors to go some part of the Tiger Leaping Gorge, especially would like to go with the foreigners.
It’s hard to write something,especially using another language. I admit that I’m not interest in writing english articles. everyday, my work is about English and I need to reply all the questions from my clients.
It’s necessary for me to study everyday. some guests want to hunt wild ducks, yes, then i need to study the hunt area and also the kind of duck.Some guests want to go a remote place, and then i need to find out details about that area. It seems helps me a lot, well, on this point, i do real benefit from this work style, that is keep on learning.
Some guests told me that in big cities, people are not interest in foreigners, so they are seldom experience the “surprise ” faces from the local people. China is not like 10 years ago, and i think this kind of fast speed will accelerate the dead of our lovely earth. Since the information spread so fast without barrier, I feel myself more like a dust on earth.
Early days, I saw a movie “ 500 days of summer’” inside, there is a very cute words ” I love us” . The more I think about this words, the more fun i got. People say ” I love u” and when it apply “s” after “U”. It become “us”.
Ps: Travel log in Thailand are too many pictures and too many interesting things. How lazy I am~~i will try to update it soon.
PPs: George, i have received your post card from Jiuzhaigou, very nice of you!!
PPPS: My winter teams have run successfully and now back to Australia , Tiger leaping gorge is a famous place , most foreigners like it, but for me , i don’t think it’s a good place to travel. I will update the interesting story of our team next week.
