Dan & Susy's Travelblog: October 2006

Gers and bikes

Roughing it (our guesthouse, Pingyao, China)

Monks

Bloke

Bus

Wall

Forbidden City, Beijing

Susy and Muuggii, Gobi Desert

Cooling down

Ancient phallic rock, Kharkorin, Mongolia

Dormant volcano, nr Great White Lake, Mongolia

At the top of the Drum Tower, Pingyao

I have finally discovered the "rotate" icon on Chinese computers (extending my comprehensive command of written Mandarin to toilet, internet cafe, rotate clockwise and train station). But, alas, it is too late for these photos so you will have to rotate your heads instead. I'm hoping to add a load more photos as soon as I can find an internet cafe that allows USB connections... Watch this space.

Superimposed Susy. Might all these photos be fakes while we spend our year caravanning round Wales?

One of 51,000 Buddhas, Yangong Caves, Datong

Spicy Sichuan hotpot

Beijing by night

The Chairman

Susy's white camel

Bayanzag fossil field, Gobi desert

Snake

Digging out school bus from a bog, Karkhorin, Mongolia

There were 31 children squeezed onto this seat-free "Wazz" bus no bigger than a VW Dormobile

Enforced dressing up by locals!

Time for a few words

We are currently in Shanghai, staying in cheap but spanking clean digs just off the Bund and soaking up a very different city to anything else we have so far seen (and are likely to see) in China: worldly, cosmopolitan, generally more expensive.

Our route has been from Beijing (where we ended up staying a week as there is so much to see and do there), to Datong, Yungang (50,000 Buddhas in a cave), Wutai Shan (one of the four holy Buddhist mountain areas in China), Pingyao (home of early Chinese banking and the best preserved Ming dynasty city), Xi'an (terracotta warriors) and then onto Shanghai.

We are beginning to appreciate the scale of China as we move between huge cities. Within 150km of Shanghai (population 15m), we will be going to see Suzhou (canals and cuisine... and population 5.6m), Hangzhou (pop 6m) and Ningbo (pop 4m). There are literally tens of cities with populations over 1m all around here. Fortunately the sea breeze seems to keep the pollution at bay which is more than can be said for Xi'an which was clouded in a dense pea-souper all the time we were there.

As with elsewhere in China, but more so in Shanghai, the construction boom is phenomenal and there are sky scrapers going up everywhere. Must be the lender in me, but the central government have a huge task on their hands to avoid a crash at some point in the future given the level of speculative building going on.

While the Chinese food has been excellent, we are enjoying a few days of being able to eat some different types of food and a lovely Ruby beckons tonight!

Our China least favourites list: ubiquitous spitting, eye-stinging pollution and crossing the road.

Bye for now!

Horse-riding, Lake Khovsgol, Mongolia

Susy and ger tent

It's hard to see Susy's bags here but this photo was taken after the worst night of camping in history (to us at least). Despite the freezing rain and wind, all was going satisfactorily until the herder decided it would be a fantastic idea to move his herd of 200+ goats next to his ger tent and, ergo, around our tent. The goats, not acquainted with modern dome tent technology bless 'em, were intrigued. We spent the next 9 hours until daybreak under siege defending our tent from goats butting and kicking our tent. The option of getting out of the tent was closed off due to the pack of evil guard dogs also parked directly outside our front zip. And it had been 3 days since we had been able to wash at this stage and the wet wipes were running low...

Dan secretly displaying his membership of the freemasons?

Evening shadow

View from mountain top over Lake Khovsgol, towards Russia

We ascended 1,000m in 2 hours from the lake shore without (but only just avoiding) keeling over

Reindeer

The cheese from this lady's milk was really rather good!

Lunch guests, near 1906 earthquake fault, Mongolia

Boy on horse

This boy with 7 other men and a dog were driving over 3,000 sheep plus cows, yaks, camels and horses to market in Ulan Bator across Mongolia from the far west. The photo was taken at their half way point - day 23 of 46!