World Tour For Children... you are not forgotten: 06/09/12

Saturday 9 June 2012

Day 9, 08 June 2012 Li Jiang to Xicang

Today total distance travelled 480km

Our initial schedule was to put up a night in the industrial town of Panzhihua but decided to stretch ourselves to reach the Xicang instead. We want to avoid the dirty air of Panzhihua and have a quiet evening in Xicang.

The road to Xicang was great and relatively easy driving. It took us about 04hours to reach Panzhihua and we can see the differences in air quality even about 50km before we reach the town. Panzhihua is a coal town and everything around her is covered with black coal dust.

We heads the national highway of number 5 from Panzhihua to Xicang.

Once we reached Xicang, our guide Mr Yang brought us to a very special Muslim Sichuan restaurant for a hearty dinner.

The sunset view around the Xicang Qionghai lake is calm and peaceful and there are full of tourist where people from nearby city wishes to break away hectic city life in exchange for a quiet weekend in Xicang.

The team taking a short break after a long drive from Li Jiang to Panzhihua

Panzhihua to Xicang highway

Sunset at Qionghai lake

Hearty Muslim Halal dinner

Day 8, 07 June 2012 Li Jiang to Tiger Leaping Gorge and Shu He

Today total distance travelled 191km

Our day started with typical chinese breakfast- porridge, yutio (yu char koay for Penangite), fried eggs and man tou with salted vegetables.

Then a long 3 hours drive to the famous Tiger Leaping Gorge. Drove up and along mountain ridge at 2911m before descending to the valley into the Yangtze river.

Upon arrival, we need to pay a small entrance fee (it happens everywhere in China) before heading into the gorge designated carpark.

We all climbed down to the Tiger Leaping stone... and the hike up was breathtaking... literally because of the thinner air at such high altitude.

The drive back to Li Jiang was better than in the morning when we arrived and we made it back within two hours.

Since we are back early, we decided to go to the older park of Li Jiang, the old town of Shu He.

Again, the entrance fees was RMB50. Shu He was more of the same with shops and restaurants catering to tourist like us.

We spend about 4hours exploring every single inch of Shu He (being Malaysian, we want to make sure our money well spent! even there is nothing much to see and we done everything in about 1.5hours)

The highest peak in Yunnan province.. Yes, I don't know the name... please use google if you want to know the name

Tiger Leaping Gorge

Ancient town of Shu He

Shu He is such a beauty... I can imagine the lavish lifestyle of the Ming dynasty

Steven Foong at work... workstation in our Li Jiang guest house

Day 7, 06 June 2012 NanJian to Li Jiang

Today total distance travelled 237km

Our first stop for the day is Dali the ancient city. Dali was the capital of Yunnan in ancient China.

Dali is very well preserved and we still able to experience some of the original landscape from ancient time.

After lunch, we done another two hours to Li Jiang. Li Jiang is also another ancient city built sometimes 600years ago by the Naxi people. Li Jiang sits on a network of manmade canals enhancing water through the city.

Although recognized as a World Heritage Site, little culture can be experienced as heavily restored shops play host to restaurants and loud discos pubs.

Lets hope our hometown Georgetown Penang will able to perform better than our Chinese counterparts when comes culture preservation.

Morning hours in NanJian

Morning market along busy Chinese highway!

There is a strong Muslim culture in Dali... there are lots of Muslim chinese and eatery within the city wall

Dali inner wall

Li Jiang Guest House. We stayed within the old city of Li Jiang

The Venice of the East... Li Jiang China

Day 6, 05 June 2012 Mengla to Nanjian China

Today total distance travelled 574km

We started our day early at 0730hours after a good home made noodles. A simple meat broth and fresh bean sprouts, spring onions and others.

Driving through the tunnels and clouds of the south of Yunnan mountain offered a fantastic view and we soon passed the tea producing cities of Pu'er and Ning'er.

Then we turn off the highway into a scenic but difficult drive through the hills. The bumpy roads were narrow but it was a very good drive.

Had lunch at a small local eating house serving exotic donkey meat together with chicken eyes and claws.

Half way through our journey to Nanjian, a broken down truck in a town and we were delayed by half and hour.

Nanjian town was simple and relatively smaller compare to others Chinese cities.

Passing the famous Pu'er tea mountain

We realized Chinese petrol station do not have air services... thanks to a kind local tyre shop, Land Cruiser is well taken care off

Land Cruiser with sun roof out... great driving experience

The minority group of Yunnan

Night view of Nanjian town from the NanJian hill

Day 5, 04 June 2012 Chiang Kong Thailand to Mengla China- passing Laos

Today total distance travelled 281km

We have a tight schedule today and we crossed our finger nothing will hold us back from reaching Mengla, China by evening 4 June 2012. Crossing two borders in a day is never a good idea but we have little or no choice if we want to reach London on 1 Aug 2012.

Our day started early at 0800hrs over at Chiang Kong Custom and Immigration post located just beside the jetty.

We cleared the Thai authority by 0830hours and then found that the ferry only starts at 1000hrs. After much negotiation and additional fees, the crew moved the barges and we were on our way crossing by 0900hrs!

Clearing Laos is rather straight forward, our contact Mr Noi was pretty quick and all Laos paperwork was completed in an hour and half.

The roads were in good condition in Laos but very windy condition and it took us 4hours to do 280km. We were relieved when we reached Boten, Laos in time as expected.

Our China guide Mr Yang met us at Mohan and in under an hour we were on our way to Mengla, our first town in China.

The day ended with a nice dinner outside our hotel and a group karaoke session... everyone is happy. We are in China.