China

Dali, and from China to Vietnam

We found Dali to be somewhat of a stripped down Lijiang; touristy, but not pristine and perfect like Lijiang, rather a bit rough around the edges.

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Hiking Tiger Leaping Gorge

The gorge is said to be one of the deepest in the world and the legend is that a tiger once leapt across it while being pursued.

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The landscape changed as our bus drove into the Yunnan province in southwest China. Mountains and hills full of red dirt dominated the scene. We saw our first rice paddies and, on a grimmer note, our first cemeteries in China.

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Giant Buddha in Leshan

Its claim to fame is that the town was the set for the martial-arts epic Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. While I couldn’t recognize anything from the movie, it was still a quaint and pretty village.

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Jiuzhaigou Nature Reserve and Songpan

A twelve hour bus ride north of Chengdu got us to Jiuzhaigou, home to a spectacular nature and scenic reserve.

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Chengdu and the pandas

Well, maybe soft sleeper isn’t that much better than hard sleeper. We got stuck with a stinky old man and a young guy who cleared his throat and coughed every two minutes, and who also liked playing music with his cell phone without earplugs.

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Xi’an and the Terracotta Army

She woke the entire carriage of sixty some-odd people and everyone was peering from their bunks to watch.

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Peace and quiet in Pingyao

The town is best enjoyed at night time, when the avenues are lit up by red lanterns hung from shop fronts and the gates and towers are illuminated with strings of white lights surrounding the edges.

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Bishu Shanzhuang and Puning Si Temple

A 5.5 hour train ride sitting in a stiff, upright chair, squeezed in amongst locals, and putting up with vendors constantly strolling up and down the aisle trying to sell noodles and god knows what else, got us to Chengde, 250 km northeast of Beijing.

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Beijing and the Great Wall of China

Aside from the tourist traps in Beijing, we spent most of our time slowly ambling about, enjoying the scenes that unfolded around us. In the hutongs it was people stir-frying in their doorways, playing badminton on the sidewalk, digging up streets to lay pipe in the darkness of the night, with nothing but a small flashlight.

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China

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