September 2011

We took the sleeper train up from Yichang after the Yangtze cruise to Xi'an, capital of Shaanxi province. Xi'an was crowded and very, very badly polluted and there's only one reason tourists go there – to see the terracotta warriors.

I was pretty sick after Huanglong and Jiuzhaigou – probably thanks to the water cooler in the hotel room – and when we flew on to Chongqing I basically crawled into bed on the cruise ship and went to sleep. After two weeks of wood-like Chinese beds it was pretty much the best thing ever to have a comfortable mattress and a comfy duvet in a quiet place and I slept like a very stationary log which has had a hard week at the office.

After travelling around Chengdu area we flew on to what is described as a Tibetan area – but still in Sichuan, not in Tibet on the map. In the scenic Ngawa Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture there are – or were as of 2000 – a narrow majority of ethnic Tibetans in the area.

After Guilin and Yangshuo we flew to Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan – home of delicious, tasty food, giant pandas, and giant sculptures.

We spent a month travelling around China in July and August, starting in Guilin and working our way around the country clockwise.