The southernmost metropolis of China’s New Frontier, Kashgar (Kāshí) has been the epicentre of cultural conflict and cooperation for over two millennia. Modernity has swept in like a sandstorm. A paved Silk Road preceded an airport and in 1999 the Iron Rooster arrived, along with many Han Chinese. Taxis and motorbikes are everywhere, and much of the old architecture is giving way to the new. This is the guidebook description from 2010. It was very different 17 years earlier. After…
After my mini lie-in I got the 10am bus for the relatively short 4 hour hop to Urumqi (20Y). The bus dropped us off in the middle of nowhere but I was able to get a 3-wheeler to the Hongsham Hotel where I got a room for 45Y with the world’s smallest bath. I needed to get some laundry done and the hotel staff weren’t interested but fortunately there was a laundry across the road. I went for a wander…
13th April, Lanzhou. I decided that rather than go back to the train station, I would try a few travel agents to get my train ticket to Jiayuguan. After trying a few and a bit of bargaining I got a place on a train at 11.30am tomorrow, arriving at 6.15am the day after for 130 Y + 30Y commission. The times are pretty good and I get a bit of time to rest up after my exhausting time in Tibet….
I was living in Hong Kong at the time. Or rather I’d just been transfered to Sydney but managed to get a two month break in order to do an epic journey from Chengdu, skirting the Tibetan plateau north, west across the border with Mongolia and Russia and then south to Kashgar and across the Karakoram mountains into Pakistan. It was April 1993. Almost 30 years later, I’ve dug up my old diary and scanned the photos and this is…
This was a trip I did in December 1992 in South West China. Xishuangbanna is an autonomous prefecture in China’s southwestern Yunnan province, bordering Myanmar and Laos. It’s known for Dai culture, distinctive temples and tropical rainforests. I was living in Hong Kong at the time and went with my friend Ingrid. First up we got the overnight ferry to Guangdong, headed to the airport and then got the flight to Kunming, the capital of Yunnan province. That was the…
This is a trip me and Ingrid did in December 1991. Unfortunately, I lost my diary for this trip so I’ve only got (badly scanned) photos. As we were coming from Hong Kong, we flew into Kunming and looks like we stayed in the Green Lake Hotel which is now 5 stars – it was a bit different then. We somehow got to Dali. I presume a very long bus journey. Then we moved onto Lijiang, again, presumably on…