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31 October 2002
Above: Last minute mending on the streets of Kunming. Today we leave China for Thailand. We started with a hotel breakfast in a garden-like setting. There was a good mix of Asian (congee, pau, red bean pastry etc) and Western (eggs, baked beans, toast etc). There was no western tea for Kim but only Chinese […]
30 October 2002
Above: At the markets. Kim’s mother rang us at the hotel this morning. She’s always interested and excited on our behalf when it comes to our travels. She’s always giving me newspaper clippings which she had collected from a long time ago, about interesting destinations. So perhaps she is living vicariously through us. I wanted […]
29 October 2002
Music from the CD shop started at 0900. The must have well-policed regulations about noise here. We took breakfast back at Sunshine Café, having scrambled eggs with ham and a fried egg with hashbrown (sharing halfway in our usual fashion). The Yunnan coffee was nice. Transport to Kunming, our last stop in China, involve a […]
28 October 2002
Today we moved south on to Dali, also in Yunnan province. It was disappointing to find that there was still on hot water when we woke. We washed using hot water from a vacuum flask and tap water. We taxied to the bus station and found a large IVECO van heading to Dali. Kim wasn’t […]
27 October 2002
Going up to 4506m The plan for the day was to go up to Jade Dragon Snow mountain. We found the bus stop to get there but the bus had just departed. It took about 40 mins to fill up till we could go but we remained productive by checking the bus schedule for our […]
26 October 2002
Flying via Kunming We woke at before 0500 and got ready for our 0700 flight. On the way, I tried getting money from the ATM again after having failed a few times last night. At the stop for the airport bus, we were accosted by a taxi driver who offered a ride to the airport […]
25 October 2002
Diarrhoea and Pandas Kim and I both woke up with diarrhoea this morning. Mine was a little less severe than his but in both cases, it wasn’t serious enough to cancel the day’s outing. We had organized a taxi to take us to the Panda Breeding Research Centre. The journey of about 35 mins cost […]
24 October 2002
Rodent I was woken in the middle of the night, not by the altitude sickness, but this time by a rat in the room. It was crawling or chewing on plastic bags. Probably the ones that we wrap our clothing in. We woke at 0600. There was not hot water in the bathroom and cold […]
23 October 2002
Last of Lhasa We reached the Airway Hotel around 1630 and were allocated a different room. This time it also offered a view of the Potala but from a slightly different angle. We took a cab, along with Denise, to Barkhor for some shopping. We bought a door knocker, a horn (musical instrument) and a […]
23 October 2002
Tashilhunpo Monastery It was another interrupted night sleep due to the altitude. We had a breakfast of toast, fried eggs, milk and coffee at the hotel. We have some sightseeing to do in Xigaze before the drive back to Lhasa. The first sight was Tashilhunpo Monastery. It is the monastic seat of the Panchen Lama […]