Tag Archives: china

Hi folks!

As you’ll have guessed from the title of this post, I recently – a mere few months since my previous mega-expedition! – had a vacation in Tibet…

Spoiler alert! It was awesome!

…But don’t feel I’ve spoiled things for you now you know the ending: there are a lot of words and – as per tradition – a lot of pics and vids coming up in a series on this oh-my-Gimalaya trip!

Ok, first, let me give you an overview of our itinerary of the trip – the where, when, how far, and what we saw – broken down into days (with altitudes noted too!)…

Where: This will come as no surprise – Tibet.

When: 7–17 October. This is straight after the National Day of the People’s Republic of China, an ideal time to come as there are a lot less folks around (just don’t tell anyone [sic]!). Plus tag on a day or three to cover flying in and flying out, which makes about two weeks. Out of those, 11 days were full to the brim with tourism activities, and saw us cover almost the whole of southern Tibet along the base of the Himalayas from east to west – 2000km in all (route map).

We arrived in Lhasa on the train along the world’s highest railroad, and we flew out of western Tibet from one of the world’s highest airports – Ngari Gunsa Airport:

Now for a bit more detail about the route, breaking it down into the separate days of the journey – in case any of you, dear readers, might one day fancy following this heroic up-tempo march across the vast mountainous terrain of Tibet. First though – a few things I should mention that need to be taken into account.

Thing No. 1: Place names. The names of historical and geographical places is, as we say in Russia – porridge. First of all it seems different names for one and the same place in different languages are used interchangeably – at a minimum in Tibetan and Chinese, but also maybe in English and others. For some place names it’s simple when they’re similar (for example, Lhasa and Lasa), but when you delve deeper into the country, that’s where you get the lumpy porridge. For example, everyone calls the village next to Mount Kailash Darchen, but on Google Maps it’s marked Bagaxiang, from the Chinese! While the same mountain – Mount Kailash (the most sacred mountain for Buddhists) – is given as Kangrinboqe Peak. Eh?!

Or, the final city on our route is sometimes referred to as Ngari Prefecture; other times, by others – Seng-ge Kambab! Meanwhile, its airport refers to itself as Ali Kunsa Airport! And it’s like this everywhere. Accordingly – be prepared!

Thing No. 2: Altitude sickness. I’ve talked about this plenty before, but in Tibet – a country that is practically all high mountains – you need to take it even more seriously. Btw: to get the full picture, I’ll be giving the heights we were at above sea level on each day.

All righty. Here’s our journey:

Day 0-1: The train from Xining to Lhasa. On the evening of Day 0 – we board the train. Come the evening of Day 2 – we exited the train in Lhasa.

Heights: 2300m (Xining); 5072m (on the train); 3600m (Lhasa).

Day 2: Lhasa (3600): Potala Palace, aka (especially on maps) Sera Monastery, and Jokhang Temple.

We wanted to get into the Drepung Monastery, but we didn’t have time to fit it into our single day here. The local tour agency messed up and didn’t tell us. Be very careful with local tour agencies – double check everything yourself. For us this was not an isolated mess-up.

Day 3: Lhasa to Shigatse. Across Yamdrok Lake, past Karola Glacier, and a quick look at Kumbum Monastery in the city of Gyantse – or Jiangzizhen!

Heights: 3600m (Lhasa); 5000m+ a few times en route (a couple half-hour walks a must); 3800m (Shigatsa; sleep).

Day 4: In Shigatse – inspection of the residency of the Panchen Lamas – Tashi Lhunpo Monastery, and from there – to the base camp of Mount Everest!

Heights: 3800m; 5200m (en route); 5000m+ (guesthouse with a view of Mount Everest).

Days 5-6: Everest (the town of Saga) to the village of Darchen (at Mount Kailas). Overnight we stayed in a small hotel.

Heights: 5000m – 4500m – 4600m.

Days 7-9: Encrustation around Mount Kailas.

Heights: 4600m; 5000m+ (overnight stop); 5700m (en route); 4800m (overnight stay); 4600 (Darchen, by Manasarovar Lake, aka Mapam Yumtso!

Day 10: Darchen to Tholing/Zanda, where there are the ruins of Guge Kingdom set in a mountain.

Height: 3700m (the first time in six days we went below 4000m!).

Day 11: to Ngari/Seng-ge Kambab, from where we flew home; rather – onward somewhere to work.

Heights: 4500 (Ngari); 4270m – airport.

That’s all for today folks, but you… can bet I’ll be back soon with more from Tibet!… This will be top-drawer – for sure :-)…

Ni hao, folks!

Recently, we took part in the World Internet Conference, which takes place every year in the touristy town-on-water Wuzhen in western China, here, not far from Shanghai. This was my fourth visit, having been here before in 2015, 2017 and 2018. And since things are developing very nicely for us over in China, I’m sure it won’t be the last time either; it’s a most useful and interesting event.

This year is the sixth annual WIC here. A complex was built especially for it out of two enormous buildings, and this year they’d gone and added a third! ->

Read on…

Straight after our Top-100 tourism in Lebanon, I suddenly found myself in… China! Specifically, on the Heihe River (the upper part of the Rui Shui River) in the city of Tianjin!

It was my second time in the city, having been here precisely seven years ago. I remember that trip very well – mostly: that I was bowled over by its spaciousness, cleanliness and neatness. Since then, I can report that the city has grown in population – clearly visible by the increased numbers of vehicles on the roads and folks on the sidewalks along the riverbank – on a Sunday evening. Come the following evening – the city was a lot less crowded, with some places practically deserted.

This time we were having a boat trip along the river through the city at night, and it turned out to be wonderful! The Chinese sure do know how to light up their cities at night:

Read on…

Hi folks!

Last month I published an update to the Chinese portion of my Top-100 Must-See Places in the World. Today I’ve got for you another list of places also in China, but these are the ones that didn’t quite make it onto the list. Runners up, as it were; B-sides; also rans… But don’t let this put you off – they’re still well worth a visit.

Bonus tracks:

Terracotta Army.

This place is of course well known, but you only truly grasp the scale and depth of the history when you see it in the flesh. Without doubt, a truly grandiose site. I’ve been there, and was very impressed.

Read on…

I’m lucky enough to find myself in China several times a year, and often that means its capital – Beijing. I’m also lucky enough to be able to take the time out of my busy business schedule here to get in some touristic sightseeing. Which is just as well as there’s just sooooo much of interest to the tourist in and around this amazing city. But what’s strange is that I haven’t been back to the city’s top tourist attraction since… 2009 – nearly 10 years ago!

And what’s the city’s top tourist attraction? Ah, yes – this post’s title gives it away a little. Yep, it’s the Forbidden City.

Read on…

Yes, the Chinese can be… colorful with their translations of foreign languages in signage, menus, whatever. And we love it! So much more fun when the translations are so direct they’re absurd, or so wrong they’re hilarious! But don’t get me wrong – I’m not laughing at the Chinese here, I’m slapping them on the shoulder with a huge grin, grateful that they can make my day brighter occasionally. Heck, there’s no way a Russian could possibly laugh, since Russians are wont to come up with similarly amusing translations. Example: a certain canteen I know insists one of their sandwiches comes with ‘beef language’, not ‘beef tongue’. A sign in central Moscow showing ‘Red Square’, gives a translation into Chinese, but it reads ‘Red Intestine’ in Chinese . Oops! But I digress. Back to China and their wonderful translations…

Btw – if you have any more examples of such mad-hatter translations – do let us all know in the comments!…

One masterstroke translation I’ll never forget, for example, is in the following pic:

Source

Read on…

Privet boys and girls!

I know it was only a few weeks ago when I finished my travelogue-mini-series on our China-2018 trip, but I just know some of you are already missing my daily updates of the red, rocky and rainy landscapes of the various Danxia landforms. Well, just for you, herewith – yet more of all that red-rocky-rainy-ness! But it’s not all good news today. The bad news is that there’ll be just one installment – this one – for I really have, finally, run out of pics. I eventually managed to finish editing my last China-2018 gigabytes, and this is the result…

On today’s menu – Wuyishan, or the Wuyi Mountains (武夷山), in the Fujian province. Remarkably, the non-Chinese internet knows about the place, which is surely a good sign that it may be even better than all the other rocky tourist attractions in this part of the country. Let’s see…

Read on…

Our China-2018 trip continues!…

Our next port of call – the city-county of Taining (福建泰宁) in the Fujian province. Actually – not the city, but its Geopark. This is one of the most famous natural tourist attractions in China, on the List of UNESCO Global Geoparks, and so on.

Read on…

Hi folks!

Not tired of my tales and pics from our China-2018 trip yet? Or are you used to them already? Then get more of the popcorn in, for here comes another installment of words plus 100+ photos – this time on the tortoise-resembling Guifeng (龟峰), just 60km from the previous day’s Longhu. The www outside China appears to know practically nothing of this tourist attraction; the only thing I could find in English was this. Accordingly, if you do want to find out more about this place, take those two Chinese hieroglyphics, enter them into Baidu or something, then get the net to translate what you get.

If such an operation looks too burdensome for you, there’s an easier option: read on!…

Introducing – the Danxia landform ‘Guifeng’:

Read on…

Hi folks!

All righty. Next up on our China-2018 mountain walking trip – Mount Longhu / 龙虎山, which literally means ‘Dragon Tiger Mountain’.

But there’s more to this place than just the mountain. There’s also the river that runs past it; there’s a traditional Chinese village that’s must-see; there’s rafting down said river; there are assorted entertainments in the nearby park; oh, and most importantly – the mountain happens to be one of the birthplaces of Taoism, with the respective thousands of years of heritage and history. As an intro to this marvelous mountain and environs, first – some pics:

Read on…