Good Morning Vietnam!!

After my sad departure from Kunming, I crossed the border and I arrived in Sapa first, in Vietnam. This nice mountain city, was well recommended from my friend Ben, but unfortunately the weather was really bad, raining and foggy every time, so I did not have the chance to do any trekking or motorbiking around, by the way the night life was surprisingly funny with local people, strange to see girls play pool so passionately and professionally!

After 3 days rest, I left and I just come to Hanoi... what a big  mess!! I have to get used again to the noise and chaos of big city life, after 4 months of quiet life in China!! Fortunately the hostel I found offer a lot a nice gifts, including free beer, not bad for my first night in Hanoi!! hope not to get lost soon....

China-Vietnam border

the only picture I take in Sapa, very bad weather!

last post from China, still in Kunming

Well, once again I am back in Kunming, the capital of Yunnan, a Chinese province I loved very much. In Yunnan there is all you can look for when traveling, great landscape, high mountains and tropical town, almost always blue sky and nice weather.

I am just back from Jinghong and Xishuangbanna region, I was very curious to see this kind of Chinese Thailand with a lot of minority people and influence from close Laos and Myanmar, great place to escape from the stress of city life and to live in tropic weather, a nice home for a lot of expat, and I can understand why. Of course I like it, but the lack of time did not allow me to see further, so now I am back in Kunming to apply both for Vietnam and Thailand visa and to live my last days here as best as I can, even because I know I am going to miss this place a lot.

By the way, I think I will be back here later.

Yuanyang

Yuanyang Rice Teraces

Yuanyang Rice Teraces

Jianshui

Strange hobby in Jianshui

Cock fighting in Jinghong

Lost around Jinghong

Kunming

Kunming's kid

Stucked in Jianshui

I just miss for few minutes my night bus to Xishuangbanna, so I am stucked here in Jianshui with nothing to do or to see until tomorrow, so I thought that spending some time to update my blog could be a nice idea...

Well, after another staying in Kunming, I travelled to Yuanyang to see rice terraces, it was wonderful to see all different shaped terraces and to enjoy the life with real farmers, much more real people than city people. Honestly all the times I experienced this kind of "poor" travelling, such as Heijing or Tagong, I had better feeling than everywhere else, you can really see how people can be happy with very few but important things.

My travelling in China is almost finished, in 10 days I will be leaving for Laos or Vietnam, I am both excited for new countries to see but also a bit sad because I really enjoyed all my time here in China. I cannot believe I spent here 4 months always travelling and moving if I consider that I never thought to come in China before starting my trip and that when I was in Hong Kong I just said: "China? why not, let's go to have a short look and then let's go straight to some beach in Thailand!!

Going south, back to Yunnan

After days of good time and food in Chengdu I had to go to Leshan to see the largest Buddha in the world and to get extension for my Chinese visa and after that I moved to Chongqing, Chinese capital during world war II (or how they call it here, the anty-japanese war). Big city with a lot of bridges and 2 big rivers, a kind on Chinese Manhattan. Not so much to see, after 3 days I took the train back to Kunming on my way south to Xishuangbanna, on the border with Laos.

Chengdu, Sichuan

After the interesting staying in Litang I tried to hitchhiking, but both the police and the weither were not agree, so I paid a crazy formula 1 driver to bring me to Tagong, it was a long 6 hours pray, with a lot of snow and bus.... Tagong was probably the best and relaxing town I saw during my journey on the mountains, nice trekking on grassland, nice and cheap food everywhere, great Tibetan people and wonderful guest house, what else can you ask for? ah, I also experienced a basketball play with monks, maybe next time I will need more oxygen to do that. From Tagong I travelled to Danba with my favourite australian-canadian couple Ben&Audree, all close together with few other people in a mini mini and again mini-van. Danba was quite anonymus town with a lot of nice little Tibetan villages around, I saw one of them and the day after with all left together at 6,20 in the morning for Chengdu with a big luxury bus, aka "the vomit bus". 11 very long hours.

Now I am in Chengdu, today I saw pandas and there is still a lot to see and to eat in this big city!

Tagong view from top



Tagong trekking and grassland



Danba

Chemgdu - Pandas



Aggiungi didascalia





Across the Yunnan-Sichuan border, along Tibetan people

Shangri La was a really great place to get used about high altitude and to do some trekking and bicycle in the 2 main valleys, I liked even if it was crowd of tourist because of the 1 week chinese holiday in beginning of October.

So, after 1 week training on the 3200 mt plateau of Shangri La I was finally ready to start my trip through the high montains on the Tibetan border!

The first destination after 11 hours of bumping bus it was Daocheng, a 3600 mt town as large as my home's street in Italy, quite freezing in the night where I start to see the first Tibetan people in my trip.

After 2 days rest & discovery in Daocheng, I then went to natural reserve of Yading, maybe my main reason of travelling in this area. Yading is a mountain sanctuary and major pilgrimage site comprising three 6000m+ peaks blessed from 5th Dalai Lama, I was very curious to hike around these holy mountains unknown to tourism until the end of 90's. Even if it was a bit expansive, I was both very happy to be there and to celebrate my best hike attempt, from 3700 mt to 4600 mt and back completely alone and without help, 11 hours of hard work but really proud of it! And the landsacpe definitely worth that money!

Then my next destination was Litang and I experienced for the first time the hitchhiking, from Yading to Daocheng and then to Litang, 6 hours in total and very good luck to get 2 different free rides in a row.

Now I am in Litang big bazar city at 4000 mt, with real Tibetan people and a big mess all around, I definitely love it, even if today I saw the worst and ugliest cerimony in my life, the world famous Tibetan sky burial... in few words a dead body is placed on the top of a hill, then there is a man (with a lot of hairs on the stomach I suppose, like people say in Italy) who cut the body in order to allow the birds to eat it, and then the fight between the hundreds of voltures begin to take part of the dead man lunch. A very disgusting experience, but this is the Tibetan way to bury dead people.

Shangri-La

Shangri-La

Shangri-La

Shangri-La

Shangri-La

Best Travel Buddies

Daocheng

Around Daocheng

Yading

Yading

Yading - Milk Lake 4.700 mt

deers on yading

Yading



Litang hard workers



Voltures ready for sky buring

Litang

Litang

Lijiang & Tiger Leaping Gorge

Wow, again a lot of time since last login, this time I had had a lot of problems even to enter my google e-mail, but this is China!

About Lijiang I don't have much to say, it is nice, part of UNESCO and bla bla bla, but it looks fake and it was so crowd of chinese tourist that was a real mess, with lot of loudy bars and so on. I better spent my time in the close old town of Shuhe and even better in the old Baisha village, more authentic experience.

After Lijiang I decided to have a stop on my way to Shangri-La for a 3 days trek on Tiger Leaping Gorge, the deepest and highest in all China. For the first time since I have start my trip I was really alone, it was not easy, I did not have technical equipment, I did not hire any local guide, I did not buy maps, I did not know what to expect and I get lost few times in the middle of nowhere, I had hot sunny, rains and wind, a lot of wind, but it was one of the best experience I had in China so far.

Now I just arrived in Shangri-La, I can only say that the 3200 mt altitude and the lack of oxygen make me sleep almost 18 hours per day, sooo nice!

Lijiang top view

Road to Baisha

Baisha old lady

Ready for trekking on Tiger Leaping Gorge

Tiger Leaping Gorge

Tiger Leaping Gorge

The King of Tiger Leaping Gorge