The People's Republic (Sep-Oct 2009)

Well, China what can I say?

1.3 billion people - 9.54 million sq kilometres.

China blows your mind.

The first city we arrived in after crossing the Vietnamese border on 20 September was Nanning. An insignificant little city that no one has ever heard of - right? It had 2.5 million people! It is where Ben finally got his Sichuan Hotpot fix he had been craving ever since our last meal at Dainty Sichuan in Melbourne 4 months before.

In China Jo, Nick, Ben and myself met up with Monica a friend from Australia and recently of London on her way home and Chris a mate from high school who has been living in China for the past 2 years.

We met in Guilin as it is near Yangzhou a beautiful region and a dream destination for most Chinese people. It was great catching up and we spent a few days biking around the kast mountains and eating dumplings.
Chris left us to go back to work after a few days and the five of us went back to Guilin. Mon was staying in a nice hotel that conveniently had an Australian wine tasting on for 60 RMB ($10AU) it was all you can drink wine and canapes. Lets just say they may not allow Australians to go to their wine tastings in the future.

After 10 weeks of travelling together Jo and Nick and Ben and I went our separate ways. Jo and Nick to head north-east on their bikes towards Beijing and Ben and I north-west towards Sichuan province and on to Tibet. Bye guys it's been fun!

Chongqing in near Sichuan Province is by far the biggest city I have ever seen. Home of the Hotpot the city is considered one of the four furnaces Cities of China (for the weather not the Hotpot). The city has 15 million people with the municipality a whopping 32 million. They had an awesome Planning Museum but I won't bore you with the details.

We looked into the Yangtze Three Gorges trip as in a couple of months the hydroelectric dam will be full and the scenery diminished. However, after the spectacular scenery (and because of the cost) we decided to head to Chengdu the land of the Giant Panda.

Whilst in Chongqing we found out that our Tibet trip had to be postponed for two weeks because of the Moon Festival. The Chinese government decided to close the border to tourists (although the media denied this) for the duration of this 60th Anniversary celebration.

We decided therefore to chill in Chengdu for a couple of weeks to get our visas renewed and get to know the city. Whilst there we met some ex-pats that had been their for many years. Two of them Heather and Joshua and their daughter Etheria kindly invited us around to their house and recorded Ben playing the bongos for their band Proximity Butterfly's new album. It was nice to just spend a couple of days with some settled people in a house and eat outstanding home cooked food.

We did eventually drag ourselves away from leisure time to go and see the Pandas at their breeding centre. They would have to be the silliest animals I have ever seen.

We met our chilling out obligations when Laura and Danielle arrived (our travelling companions to Tibet). By playing lots of cards and preparing for our trip to Tibet. For the Moon Festival, Eddy who ran the hostel (Traffic Inn (Hostel)) arranged a moon cake eating competition (traditionally during the Moon Festival Chinese people living away from home are sent moon cakes from their home village) and candle boat making to float down the river. It was very sweet.