North Asia
 This article is from Angie Whitehead. Check her website at http://www.srilankaundiscovered.co.uk
China
(exchange rate 1 US$ = 8 Yuan ;1 GBP = 15 Yuan)
Yunnan
Kunming is the principal city of Yunnan and has around 4 m inhabitants. The airport is quite close to the city centre and was where I first realized that little English is spoken in China! Immigration was simple; I had obtained my Chinese visa in Colombo, Sri Lanka for Rs 3200 (around US$30) and it was valid for 3 months. The first impression was that I had arrived back in the West – everyone was wearing western clothes, in contrast to the traditional lungis of Burma, and smart clothes at that. And Kunming was just so modern – wide streets lined with spring flowers and with so many smart shops, cafes, restaurants, new-looking cars and buses; another world, another century away from dusty Mandalay.
 I stayed at Hotel Camelia, at first sight a very smart hotel way above my budget, but divided into 3 parts – an expensive, a cheaper and a hostel! I found this was common in China. My room was in the cheaper part and cost Yuan 120 for a big room with private bathroom,.TV and electric blanket (no heating or air-con system!).and an excellent buffet breakfast served in the hotel’s art-deco dining room. Kunming is called Spring City and this was Spring (early March) which meant that days were warmish (20 deg C) and sunny while nights were cool (7 deg C).
I spent 5 days in the city, browsing around, visited interesting museums, a fantastic botanical gardens with a chairlift to a nearby mountain, dotted with temples (beware here – there was a Yuan 100 entry fee for the gardens, Yuan 40 fee for return chairlift fee and Yuan 20 fee to visit the temples at the top of the hill; this is very common in China, the first entrance fee usually will not cover all the sights you want to see) and Dian Chi the nearby lake (another spelling could be Tien Chi – Heavenly Lake), complete with boats and tandem bikes (with places for 3 to sit!) for hire. I had an hour’s boat ride for Yuan 20, punted by a young woman. Kite flying is the main pastime in this area and the parks are full of kite-flyers holding huge wheels (the kite strings). You can travel any distance in the city limits on excellent modern buses for Yuan 1 and get a plate of vegetable fried rice for Yuan 5 in a café.
I had developed a bad cough and cold in Myanmar (dust related I think) and had to visit the hospital for some anti-biotics. This was a modern place, with signs in Chinese and English and English-speaking help. I was quickly seen and a prescription given, which worked wonderfully well. And all this for Yuan 15. . As I was planning to visit Tibet I wanted to have the problem sorted because coughs can get worse in the high altitudes there!
From Kunming I took a coach to Dali, on the eastern edge of the Himalayas, along a wide motorway, passing traditional Yunnanese wooden houses. The aircon coach cost Yuan 40 and gave free bottles of water, the journey took 7 hours because of a breakdown en route. Dali would have been an interesting old walled town but it is now a major tourist centre (local tourism) full of all types of shops, though mainly souvenirs, cafes and restaurants. It is about 3 km from a large lake so I hired a bike to get around, cycling out past the 3-pagoda temple complex to the lakeshore and then round the old city walls and up towards the hills. The outer part of the town was a gigantic building site, new housing coming up everywhere ; many building site workers were women. The houses clinging to the hillside were old and people were pushing cart-loads of coal up to them (fuel for the chilly nights and for cooking). The town is overshadowed by high mountains. I took a chairlift up here to 3200m and it was bitterly cold!
I stayed at MCA Hostel just near the old town walls, where the taxi driver dropped me (the coach from Kunming stopped at Dali New Town, some 20 km from Dali Old Town). This was good value as a buffet breakfast was included for 80 Yuan, as well as free internet use. The room had a great view over the lake and a private bathroom, TV and electric blanket.
From Dali I moved on by local coach (I was the only foreigner on it) to Lijiang, only a 3 hour journey and at an altitude of around 2800 m. Here I stayed at MCA Hostel again (same ownership as Dali) for 60 Yuan a night, but this time no breakfast and no electric blanket though a private bathroom and TV. The hostel has a very attractive setting on a hill overlooking the town. Again the town is made for local tourism but is quite charming with old winding streets and divided into an old and a new part, overlooked by Jade Dragon Snow Mountain. Tours can be taken to visit Tiger Leaping Gorge (the Yangtze River) for around Yuan 150 which includes lunch. Beware because no-one speaks anything other than Chinese usually and the minibus has no heating! Also a long visit to 2 jewellery factories is included! Lijiang is the centre of Naxi (a Yunnanese hill tribe with roots in Tibet) culture and everywhere you go you hear Naxi music being played. Piped street music is very popular in China and even accompanies you on chairlifts and in cable cars up mountains. I bought a CD from a small shop near Black Dragon Pool Park (supposedly from where you get the most famous view in China of Jade Dragon Snow Mountain reflected in the lake and it is very impressive!). I climbed up the hill behind Black Dragon Pool Park and got some fine views of Lijiang as well as stumbling across a burial ground, which appeared to be a mixture of all the Chinese religions – Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism.
Szechwan
From Lijiang I took the plane (Air China) to Chengdu ; it was a late flight and arrived at 11.30 pm in Chengdu. Getting a taxi proved a problem but an ‘airport guard’ helped with this (drivers don’t like to take foreigners as they can’t speak to them!). We found Holly’s Hostel in the Tibetan quarter of town (room was Yuan 100 with heating, bathroom and TV). It also has a restaurant, with good, cheap travellers’ fare, and internet access. Holly, the lady owner, is very helpful and speaks good English. She organizes trips to Tibet itself, both overland and by air., and men clad in Tibetan robes hang around the foyer looking for business (driving tourists to Tibet that is). The hostel is near the Kangding Hotel if you need a reference point for a taxi and opposite the Wuhu Temple, which houses a fine museum of Chinese culture and history. Not far away is the Sports University, a well-laid out campus where students train at numerous sports and you can watch them every evening.
Chengdu is a city about the size of Kunming, but slightly less modern although boasting the ubiquitious McDonalds, and is the principal town of Szechwan province. It has a huge central square with a massive Mao Tse Tung statue (very common in nearly all Chinese towns), off which lead the main shopping streets. Not far away is Wenchu temple, set in a maze of alleys with interesting food and drink stalls. But most interesting of all in Chengdu is the Panda Breeding Centre (tours from Holly’s Hostel cost Yuan 75 for ½ day, though it is worth thinking about going independently and staying longer, as it is fantastic. You start early – 7.30 am – to catch the pandas’ feeding time and there are both adults and small pandas there guzzling their bamboo shoots and playing. An interesting film explains the breeding programme and there is a fine museum all about pandas and other wildlife.
Tibet
My ticket and Tibet permit had cost Yuan 2600 and were delivered to Holly’s Hostel by Tenzing, the travel rep in Chengdu (I had booked this in Kunming at the Camelia Hotel).
Chengdu is around 2 ½ hours flying time from Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, a stunning journey across jagged snow-capped mountains where the pandas live (this is good camouflage for them as the scenery is black rock and white snow for a lot of the year). Only 4 foreigners were on the plane and we made friends upon arrival at Lhasa airport. A bus takes you into the city, some 75 km (a common distance for airports!) away for around Yuan 15. The sky is blue and cloudless (altitude is 3600 m) a welcome change after grey, overcast, chilly Chengdu, the scenery somewhat bleak and empty, interspersed with the odd tree and the occasional flat-roofed village.
 We enter Lhasa though the new town, a carbon copy of all Chinese towns, and pass the famous Potala (palace of the Dalai Lama). The bus drops us near here so we get a taxi to the main guest house area, which is in the Tibetan part of town. I get a room at the Snowlands Hotel for Yuan 100 a night, including bathroom, TV and (yes) heating!
Food is the usual travellers’ fare (pancakes for breakfast, vegetable fried rice./noodles for dinner with the addition of momos, Tibetan dumplings) but costs more than in China proper because a lot of stuff is imported. The Tibetan quarter is quite crowded as it is a focus for pilgrims to the Jokhang temple, near the Barkhor Square – beware of pickpockets here, especially in the form of children!
 My new group want to make a trip to Everest Base Camp so I join in to help lower the cost of the Landcruiser Hire (there were 5 of us). A trip of 4 nights and 5 days cost us cost us around Yuan 500 (this included entry fees for Everest National Park). It was a stunning but tough trip, visiting Lake Yarlung Tso, a vibrant turquoise colour , covered with many icy patches, Gyantse (has a fine monastery full of dark chambers and numerous statues or demons and bodhisattvas, lit by yak butter lamps), Sakya (home to yet another famous monastery), Lhatse (a small town where men play billiards in the street in the sunshine and we saw a sheep being killed outside a restaurant, presumably for dinner), Everest Base Camp, Shigatse (famous for a huge monastery complex on the hillside), the Brahmaputra River Valley and back to Lhasa. Some of the guest houses had no running water and (of course) no heating (price in this case Yuan 40 per room) and at Everest we stayed in a large plastic tent called Hotel California for Yuan 20 each. This was the low point of the journey as it was very cold and windy and airless (!) – altitude 5500 m at this point. It was hard to walk very far and food supplies were low. The wind howled all night and the temperature dropped well below zero so that there was ice on a glass of water in the morning!. Despite all this, the stunning scenery made the journey worthwhile, even though conditions were extreme and food was appalling, where available.
I had my first taste of tsampa, the Tibean staple food, on this trip (roasted barley flour mixed with yak butter and tea leaves and made into a paste with hot water). Another highlight was the main monastery at Shigatse, mentioned above, built on a hill overlooking the town, and a huge rabbit warren of shrines and statues accessed by wide wooden ladders (the usual way to go upstairs in Tibet). Many monks in maroon-coloured robes swarmed everywhere. The countryside outside Lhasa is very sparsely populated and there is no vegetation apart from in the lower-lying valleys. Yet people do live here, keeping yaks, goats, hens and so on. Houses are made from stone and people wear traditional clothing – long robes over trousers, sometimes with aprons in front. We saw some people on foot, others with horse and carts (no motorized transport available) crossing high mountain passes.
Back in Lhasa I was not so lucky with the hotel room – Hotel Kirey at Yuan 80 a night had no heating and a leaking bathroom! I used the remaining time in town to visit the Potala (now a museum, containing the remains of the last few dalai lamas in jeweled splendour) and the summer palace.
Lhasa-Beijing Railway
 It was an early start to catch the 8 am train to Beijing - it was just getting light as we approached the purpose-built station outside the city limits; I was traveling with a Czech man who had been on the Everest trip. The train has been in service since around June 2006 and the line linking Beijing with Lhasa is a result of several years work. I traveled soft sleeper (4 berths to a compartment and TV screens showing films about Tibet) and the 48 hour (2 night) journey cost me around Yuan 1600 (this is because I had bought the ticket in 2 parts, initially thinking I would get down in Xining, half-way along). Food is available on the train – a meal of rice with 4 side dishes cost Yuan 15 – and hot water is provided in the usual flask, found in all Chinese hotel rooms along with jasmine tea bags. The Qinhai plateau has passes of around 5500 m to cross and offers fantastic but bleak views into the far distance, with yak herds patrolling the plains Many lakes and rivers were still frozen (it was now early April). We started with a temperature of 8 deg C the first day but by the 2nd afternoon we were in the valley of the Yellow River and the temp had risen to 28 deg C– children were bathing in the river by the rail track.
Beijing
 The following morning, after a total distance of 4000 km, we reached Beijing Central Station around 8 am, having traveled since daybreak through endless grey and dreary suburbs so like those of western cities. Getting a taxi proved to be the usual problem (drivers hate taking foreigners because of the language problem) but we finally made it to the Hostel Dragon Town (room with bathroom, heating and TV cost Yuan 120, a good deal for Beijing), in a pleasant hutong (narrow street), not too far from Tienamen square. The weather was quite cool and windy (Beijing is at 40 deg. N latitude), with few leaves on the trees, still calling for the winter jacket bought in Kunming (in a sports shop as the winter stock was finished in Spring City). I had 4 days in Beijing which was just about right to see most of the main sights – the Temple of Heaven, where the emperors worshipped and set in an attriactive park, the very large Tienamen Square, Mao’s Tomb (closed for renovations), the very crowded Forbidden City, which serves now as a museum, pretty Beihai park with its lake and hilltop pagodas, where middle-aged ladies were practicing martial arts. I took an organized tour in a minibus (there were 2 Japanese men , 1 Englishman and myself) to the Ming Tombs just outside Beijing, passing the Olympic Village on the way (it was under construction). Unfortunately we only saw one Ming Tomb, set in a pretty garden, and had 3 obligatory visits to jade factories as well as a rather frugal lunch. The highlight of the day was the Great Wall at Badaling. The Wall is as impressive as it is in pictures and snakes away over barren hills into the middle distance. But it is SO crowded you can hardly move in places – crowded with local tourists. At one point there is a cable car just in case you cannot manage to walk up the steps and onto the
By contrast, the journey from Beijing to Paris with Air China WAS a relaxing experience. The airport was large and spacious, the flight only half full and the service impeccable. Our stewardesses patrolled the plane from beginning to end of the flight to see what the passengers needed, every ready to help. I had excellent food and saw 3 excellent films, 2 of which were Chinese. On the 8000 km journey we flew across Mongolia, across Siberia to Novosobirsk and Novgorod, all the while seeing only snowfields, snowy mountains and frozen rivers and lakes. The snow thinned out on the western side of the Urals and had disappeared when we flew over Moscow, continuing to Gdansk, Berlin and so to Paris, 11 hours later.
Comment : China is wonderful – a land of many contrasts, many climates and many cultures, but all with an underlying thread tying them together: the wish to progress. It was warming up nicely when I left Kunming in the south (25 deg. C ), then the temp. dropped to 18 deg. C in Chengdu, and then to 16 deg. C in Lhasa , although nights and early mornings were near freezing point, finally to hit 12 deg C in Beijing. Infrastructure is excellent, the cost of living low compared with Europe. English is only spoken by those working in tourism and often not very well. Channel 9 on TV is the China World Service and gives news in English, as well as excellent weather details for the whole country. Communication is therefore the biggest problem and you need to rely on your hotel or guest house to get you onward or excursion tickets. I even bought my Beijing-Paris Air China ticket from the hotel – it cost Yuan 5500 one-way. Sometimes Chinese people seem a little surly but that is mainly because of the language problem. Most food menus are only in Chinese and most food is nothing like that in Chinese restaurants in the West. That said, you are sure to find something to eat, even if it means going into a self-service shop, so don’t worry, you won’t starve but you may get a little thinner (cabbage is a favourite in China as in Burma!). The whole country operates on Beijing time, the same time zone as Hong Kong/Malaysia time.
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