Ni howdy, partner!

He he he.

Hello from Songpan, another little town up in the mountains. We finally managed to escape the joy that was the bacon sarnies at Sim's Cosy Hostel in Chengdu and made it up here on Friday. Chengdu was great - so relaxing. We stayed there for 2 weeks, which is a stupid amount of time, but we were so relaxed! Many hours were spent in the local temple where the tea-house was the perfect place to lose an afternoon in true sichuan-style. You buy some tea in a cup for about 30p and your cup just keeps getting refilled whilst you relax people-watching, reading and trying to avoid the gruesome spectacle that is people getting their ears and eyes cleaned with sharp instruments. The vegetarian restaurant was amazing too. My favourites there were the yuxiang qiezi (fish-flavoured aubergine in a spicy sauce that has nothing to do with fish) and the tiger-skin peppers - green peppers scorched until they collapse and served with the most amazing soy-vinegary sauce. Mmmm.

We did manage to rouse ourselves and get out of Chengdu for a couple of days at least. We visited HuanglongXi, the Qing dynasty town where scenes from Crouching Tiger were filmed, but it was a little disappointing. It was swarming with Chinese tourists and our highlight was sitting in a teahouse by the river people-watching. From there we headed to Emei Shan, one of China's holy mountains dotted with temples, populated by greedy monkeys (real monkeys, not just yours truly) and swarming with tourists. It was crazy. In NZ we climbed a mountain that was 1400m and were kitted out in all manner of hiking-nastiness for the journey - just in case we died of hypothermia or sprained an ankle or whatnot. On Emei Shan we were surprised to see steps, everywhere. Yes, steps. A 3000-odd metre mountain and they have paved a path and put steps on every hill. Some of them were tiny (unlike my feet). It was so monotonous it drove us mad. All the Chinese tourists (and boy, were there a lot of them) were climbing in what me and you would nip to the shops in. Jeans, converse, little T-shirts. NO POLYPROPELENE IN SIGHT! We were even more surprised, when we were huffing and puffing up the steps at around 2000m to be overtaken by blokes running past with concrete slabs strapped to their back to fix the path. Craziness. What we approach as a serious undertaking, they think of as a walk in the park. Every km or so we were met with a little stall where you could get a full Chinese dinner (we were happy to see these!). Anyway, by 2500m we were so sick to death of stairs that we gave up and got the bus down - we had another 500m to the summit but it was raining and it was no fun at all. Give me hiking in NZ any day!


After Emei Shan we went to visit the Leshan Buddha - which is the largest buddha in the world, apparently. To my relief it was devoid of tourists, by Chinese standards, as it was raining. As with the other sights from this little side trip, it was a little disappointing. HuanglongXi, Emei and Leshan had been some of the things I was most looking forward too but for me they were all a little too packaged and too full of sheep-like Chinese being herded around together for me to have the wow factor.


One trip from Chengdu that was well worth it was the panda breeding research centre. These photos say it all really...

So, with now under 3 months left on our China visas (yup, we've been here 3 months already!) we left Chengdu and came to Songpan - back up in the mountains and away from the polluted grey skies of the city. There we joined a group on a 3-day horse trek into the mountains where we camped at 4000m and ate around a camp-fire (trying to avoid the horse-hairs in the stew). The ride was hard-core, we rode for at least 5 hours each day, which was quite an achievement. After a night sleeping on rocks our backs were killing us after the first night but the trek up to Ice Mountain rewarded us with amazing views. On the second night there was group solidarity as we all told our tales of back-pain woe over dinner. But it was well worth it - I'd say one of the highlights of my trip - and we made some new friends, some of whom we are going to try and meet up with in India.

It's all good. We're now spending today recovering in preparation for tomorrow's 12-hour bus ride to the next town. I hope it's easier to sit down by then!

Happy birthday to Rob and to Michelle. Lots of love to you both!