Back to School in China
By the time we were up in the morning the locals were out in force exercising and having haircuts. Today was to be another shorter driving day to a mine in Qianwei then on to a bamboo forest near Muchuan. Our first stop was at Qianwei Huangcun Well - a disused coal mine dating back to the 1930’s. It is also the terminus of the 19.8 km Jiayang narrow-gauge railway. As we pulled up we thought it was going to be a tacky tourist experience, but the site has been developed as a h
20 hours ago7 min read
China - Panda Love in Chengdu
We left the busy streets of Xi’an behind and had a largely uneventful 300km journey to the city of Hanzhong. The Amap app that we are using in China is so superior to Google maps giving a constant narrative on speed, which lane you should be in, where cameras are and what they’re for. It even shows when traffic lights you are approaching are about to change and whether you should speed up or slow down. The road signs warnings are constant too. When we reached Hangzong we pa
6 days ago7 min read
China - Meeting The Emperor's Army
Leaving Pingyao we had a long wet cold drive towards the mountain village Guoliang. We felt for the motorcyclists. We stuck to the expressway roads which took us through tunnel after tunnel - some as long as 11kms. We even went through a series of tunnels together spanning 48kms. Once off the expressway the scenery got a bit more rural just before we reached the parking lot for the mountain road. We couldn’t make up our mind if we should leave Lolly here for the night and ge
Oct 117 min read
China - More Ancient Treasures
We had a 240km drive to our next destination - the ancient city of Yuxian. Before leaving we picked up some goodies in a nice bakery next to the hotel where we acquired some lovely fresh bread and pastels de nata. We have to say we're not keen on Chinese breakfasts which tend to be noodles, meat, veg and soups - just not what we fancy at the start of the day. The roads were busy getting out of Beijing but it got calmer when we got off the expressway onto a scenic National Hi
Oct 35 min read
We’ve only gone and driven to the Great Wall of China!
We had an early start to be at the Mongolian border for 8am opening. It was already busy. The overlanders were directed to a car park and were called to the entrance barrier in dribs and drabs. This was just to get through the barrier into the processing area to exit Mongolia. It was finally our turn. We handed in our car papers and passport to a very grumpy looking lady. After a couple of minutes she threw them back at Colin saying she couldn’t find Lolly on the system. The
Sep 307 min read
