salmon2jalan: October 2006

Guiyang

Hello from china- towards Guiyang.
We had a late start 10.30 instead of 7.30, for 5 hours of driving close to 550km.
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang went to the workshop. we headed off. Car 10 and one policeman stayed behind with her.
Well what was supposed to have been a smooth dual expressway turned out to be a nightmare!
Road improvements meant diversion without any notice or warning signs or lights! this is so common in china. Wait for the photos and you will see what we went through.
So it took us 8 hours! We received news that CCBB and Car 10 left Chongqing at 6 pm! Well we are praying that they will arrive safe. They do not have the police escort car with them, justone of the police man.
As we were driving through the city towards our hotel, a man runs across to get to the other side, two cars infront and get hit by a taxi overtaking us from the right. They are left hand drive over here. This means that overtaking must be on the left side. We saw him hit and went flying over the bonnet to the windscreen of the taxi, but again we have to just keep going. Just horrible. Sweeper behind us said that he saw the man get up!
Thank God for this nice hotel and good strong shower with very hot water.

Hello from China-30th Oct.'06

Well here we are almost at the tail end of our drive through China.
We are in Chongqing now. We have had some wonderful trips in small boats through the Gorges.
Saw the villages that are going under. The waters are filling fast in the Gorge. One small Gorge we went through, we were supposed to get off our boat and trek to a village for a home cooked lunch. We had to abandon as the water had gone up too high for us to trek!
I have a better understanding now of how much this Dam means to the people in China. There has been so much criticism on the building of this Dam, but one has to underestand the history of China and the force of powerful Yangtze and her destruction on her people. She is "Our Mother River" is what we have heard over and over again by the people.
We have visited the "relocation new towns" and have seen the people living and enjoying their modern amenites. The young people especially, protray hope and optimism for their future. We have stayed in three of these new towns. even had my hair cut and styled in one of the beauty shops. It was a joy to try to interact with them.

Everywhere we went people had smiles and were eager to find out where we were from. John being the only caucasian was in great demand for photo taking with them. In a few years time I suppose one may chance to see a framed photo proudly hanging on their walls. Certainly our group of Malaysian Chinese seem to think so.

Unpleasant incidence, were twice, when we were held to ransom for supposedly running over their dog or hitting their cart. Payment was always the forgiving factor.

Convoy- well Ninja convoy Master's car a Honda CRV went down with two pistons blown. New car only done 50000km. That had to be left behind for repairs.
Today Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is down. She had been doing so well but the terrible pot holes and sudden off road has taken it's toll on her. We have to wait and see if she can go on tomorrow.
The roads around the Gorge is really bad. there is much repairs going on but it is still so very bad.
As of today we have covered approx.10,000km. We are still all good friends!
Tomorrow we head towards Kumming. Hopefully we will have free internet in the hotel.

Our group

We just love our group photo taking.

China-Cuisine3

A must, Hot water for the tea.

Most times they serve every dish on this trolly.

fish(fresh water) and bean curd

mussels and?

China-Cuisine

I really do not know.
passed

nor this one

make your own pancake filling, good.

Harvest dish. everything was thrown into this one.

China- Cuisine

Healthy veg.

pig's liver

pig's head

pig's blood

The Three Gorges Wu Gorge

Nice bridge

Up a smaller gorge which did not exist 5 years ago

The current end. We were supposed get off and walk to a local village but the watr level had risen too much so no lunch!

Quite narrow

The Three Gorges Wushan

Wushan is 90% new town with resettled people from the flooded villages and towns in the area and on Friday night lots come to the town square and have a dance. We gave a short demo!

A view of the new town. Its misty early morning and a lousy photo

They have not finished the new landings for boats and since the water level keeps rising until 2008, getting on and off the boat can be fun

The Three Gorges- Xiling to Wushan

Travelling by road you have to go up and down the subsidiary gorges thru some great scenery

A short stop for fruits, gingko nuts and others I have forgotton the names of....

Now which one is which?

Sometimes the roads had not been upgraded

The Three Gorges- The Dam

The locks which transport the barges past the Dam up 70 metres. This ones was full of coal barges going downstream

pretty hazy evening so not much impression from this photo. Its not the highest by a long way but its length is impressive. No statistics or propaganda on this blog

These are the guys that built it

ZHANGJIAJIE- recovery

We were treated to a medical talk on the medicinal plants collected from the reserve. Also from the bears(bile). Then we were treated to free foot massage using the herbs. While they caught us with our socks off, they tried to sell us the medicine. This is a government owned setup., to help the locals?