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  • Dag 51

    Little & Big Wild Goose Pagodas

    22 mei, China ⋅ ☀️ 33 °C

    With everybody recovering from illnesses, we took it a bit easy today. Our first stop was the Little Wild Goose Pagoda. After we got our tickets we entered into a very pretty Japonica tree lined courtyard. Many of the trees were well over 1000 years old, but the original trunks had rotted away and new trunks sprouted from the old stumps. It made for a nice cool area to wander.

    We got a neat little view of the Little Wild Goose Pagoda through the canopy. The pagoda originated in 700AD but was restored in the 1800s. It was part of the imperial gardens from when Xi'An (then known as Chang'An) used to be China's capital.

    After the pagoda we came across a very cool bell, which caused fountains to spring into life when rung. Not sure exactly how the mechanism worked, but something to do with the vibrations caused the water to flow (or there is some very clever trickery and a pump somewhere...)

    Next we headed into the on site museum and enjoyed looking at many of the old relics dug up around Xi'An. Particularly interesting were the Jade figurines and belt buckles, as well as a fantastic Jade cup around 2000 years old. There was also a scale model of the old walled Chang'An. A bit mind blowing that this city had a population of around 1 million around 1500 years ago. We then chilled outside near a pond before taking a taxi back to the hotel for an afternoon siesta.

    Once the outside temperature had cooled enough, we headed for the Big Wild Goose Pagoda. This pagoda is a little better maintained, and also has wind chimes under its eaves. We couldn't get close to this one however as the tourist area was closed for the day.

    We had a light dinner before joining the bustling crowds at the street market. The streets are lined with stalls, the trees lit with neon lights, and red Chinese lanterns hanging from the trees - all making for a great atmosphere. We stopped to watch a small performance, enjoyed the artwork and fountains, and had a sneaky little ice cream on the side.

    To top the evening off, we were treated to a fountain & laser light show which was spectacular!
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  • Dag 50

    Off to Xi'an

    21 mei, China ⋅ ☀️ 33 °C

    Travel day today from Chongqing to Xi'an. Unfortunately we have a bit of sickness going around our group, with Ross and Vela recovering and Nathan seeming to regress back into his illness or picking up something new...

    We were dropped at the airport by Vela's step dad (after nearly going to the wrong terminal) and although we were a little rushed, our flight ended up delayed by half an hour. Once on the plane, mum and dad took advantage and caught up on a few winks. We arrived in Xi'an and took a taxi into the old walled city where our hotel is. It was about 2pm by now and 29 degrees outside, so we all took a siesta rather than braving the outside.

    As it started to cool off around 5.30pm, Ross, Diane & Vela went to explore the wall around the old city. A quick stop for a sugar filled donut for some energy to climb the steps. This obviously is not "The Wall" but it is one of the largest city defence walls still standing in China.

    After climbing the wall they explored the nearby bell tower and city lights as the sun went down. Some neat night time photography courtesy of Vela before heading back to the hotel for a late dinner at about 10.30pm.
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  • Dag 49

    Pandas, Cable Car, Old City & Hotpot

    20 mei, China ⋅ ☁️ 27 °C

    The way we see it, there are 4 big ticket items that anyone visiting China needs to tick off, The Wall, The Forbidden City, The Terracotta Soldiers, and Pandas. We decided to get out of the gates early and headed for Chongqing zoo to see some pandas. The pandas were incredibly cute, but we must have come during nap time - easy to do as I think they sleep for 90% of the day. Many of them were sleeping in what looked to be very uncomfortable poses, draped over poles or starfished on platforms. Nathan managed to spy one which wandered into its cave at the back of the exhibit too, but that was the most action we saw.

    Diane enjoyed a little prance in some of the flowers before we left the zoo and headed for lunch. After lunch we took the old cable car across the Yangtze River. This cable car used to be one of the main ways to get across before all the modern bridges were built.

    The cable car put us back in the middle peninsula, close to the raffles tower complex again. We passed an old temple, dwarfed by the surrounding skyscrapers, and headed for the old city. This area, now very much a tourist attraction, demonstrates how Chongqing used to be built. Given Chongqing's mountainous geography, they would build platforms on big piles and then build their buildings on top of that. We climbed down through the nine levels of the old city, encountering a wide array of traditional foods, sauces, teas and even a smoke breathing dragon!

    After leaving the old city (which was very busy and loud) we found a Majiang room and taught Ross and Diane the basics - we will test them on this later. Chongqing hotpot for dinner before hitting the hay.
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  • Dag 48

    Welcome to China!

    19 mei, China ⋅ ☁️ 27 °C

    After a "quiet" day yesterday (only a Chinese wedding, meeting up with three groups of Vela's mates, and about 10 hours of Majiang) today was an exciting one! Nathan's parents arrived in China for the first time!

    We picked them up from the airport at about 10.30am and, after a quick refresh at the hotel, took them out for our favourite Chongqing style noodles. The noodle restaurant is quite famous for being owned by three brothers, who each work the restaurant for a year before taking two years off. Big thumbs up for the first meal in China.

    Afterwards we headed for Chongqing's famous monorail. We weren't the only ones having a gander at the famous line which goes right through the middle of a residential apartment building. We hopped on the monorail and rode a few stops with nice views of Chongqing over the Jialing River (smaller of the two rivers in Chongqing).

    We exited the monorail in the middle of the peninsula where the Jialing River meets the Yangtze. You could see where the green waters of the Jialing mixed into the browner colours of Yangtze. There is a famous tower complex (4 individual towers which are connected with a causeway 42 floors up) so we headed up to one of the bars for a spot of hydration and to enjoy the view.

    We then headed off to meet up with Vela's family. The restaurant put on an absolute feast, with dishes being stacked on top of each other in order to fit them on the table. Nathan's dad enjoyed having a taste of Baijiu with Vela's step dad, calling it "medicine" to help fight off any impending illness from the plane. Thank you to Vela's mum, Mei, for organising a fantastic welcoming dinner!
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  • Dag 45

    Marathon back to Urumqi

    16 mei, China ⋅ ☁️ 40 °C

    Today essentially marked the end of our time in Xinjiang. With our flights leaving Urumqi tomorrow, we had to make the 680km journey from Nalati, through mountains, valleys and deserts, back to Urumqi. Our GPS suggested about 10 and a half hours travel time, but with plenty of obstacles along the way it took closer to 12.

    The first obstacles we faced were livestock and construction vehicles. The livestock is pretty much par for the course in Xinjiang (we've never been stuck in so many sheep tornadoes) but the construction vehicles were quite interesting. They are currently building a massive new highway through this area - pretty much the whole way to Urumqi - expected to cut the travel time in half and set to be finished by the end of next year. The amount of tunneling and bridging required was on a completely different level to anything in NZ. There were trucks with massive concrete girders backing across the road, diggers and other construction items we had to wait for or dodge.

    The next obstacle was going over the mountain pass. Going up the hill it was very obvious why they need a new highway through here. It was utter chaos with potholes that might swallow a small child, and some parts being more pothole than road. This slowed the many freight trucks down to a crawl, and sometimes a complete stop. The traffic was forced to weave all over the road to try and navigate a path around some of the craters. Adding to this, cars (and trucks) were overtaking and undertaking left, right and centre.

    Vela did an amazing job getting us through this safely, and after about an hour of climbing this mountain, going high enough that there was snow on the sides of the road (and only about 12 degrees outside), we made it to the other side and were greeted with amazing views of the arid grasslands below, framed by the mountain ranges on both sides.

    Our next obstacle came shortly after descending onto the plains by way of a police checkpoint. Unbeknownst to us, we were about to enter a military area and foreigners are not allowed through... With no other roads we were faced with the possibility of having to backtrack over the mountains and back around the northern side of the Sky Mountains range - the way we had come. Fortunately the head police officer took pity on us and relented. After taking our details and photos of the vehicle etc, they allowed us to continue through. Phew!

    It was pretty easy going for the next few hours, apart from Vela earning a speeding ticket (bit ridiculous having 60km/h limits on flat, straight, wide roads), but we weren't the only ones getting fined. We started weaving through some valleys and encountered a short thunderstorm before finally popping out into a completely barren, alien landscape. It felt a bit like what you might imagine Mars might be like. Bare hard rock everywhere. Piled into hills and valleys. Almost no vegetation to speak of. We think that this area had been heavily mined in the past, and what we were seeing was whatever was left in the aftermath.

    The atmosphere had turned hazy, and a quick glance at the dashboard showed the temperature had leaped from 12 degrees as we crossed the mountains to 39 degrees! We drove through a heavy industrial area (wish we had taken some photos but we forgot) with massive power plants and what looked like concrete factories and oil refineries. With the haze and the temperature it was actually quite quite a spectacle.

    About an hour and a half out from Urumqi we stopped for a quick break (Sunny had done her driving stint and Vela was ready to hop back behind the wheel). The temperature was still baking outside, and the air was so dry to breathe it felt like the moisture was being sucked out of your body. Everything, everywhere, was flat. The sun was barely poking through the haze - but obviously still had plenty of potency.

    About 12 hours after leaving Nalati, we finally made it to Urumqi! The atmosphere had cleared up and we were glad to have made it in one piece. No hotel for us tonight, instead we had booked an overnight Chinese "foot" massage (it's more of a full body thing). We had a rather rude lady at the front desk and we thought about turning around - but it was too difficult as we'd handed back the keys to our Orange Tank. So we persevered. Fortunately the massage more than made up for the rudeness. The masseuses were lovely and Vela (whose voice was starting to return) enjoyed chatting with them.

    After the massage we managed to negotiate our way onto a Majiang table, and played until 4.30am. Sunny and Clara stayed up and headed to the airport at 5.30, while Nathan, Vela and Mei managed to get a few hours of sleep as they had a midday flight booked.

    Xinjiang has been amazing! The epic scenery and landscapes. The friendly people. The completely different cuisine. And although we only saw a fraction of this province, we highly recommend!
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  • Dag 44

    Nalati National Scenic Area

    15 mei, China ⋅ ☁️ 17 °C

    Today we returned to Nalati National Scenic area and this time drove to the highland meadow area. After arriving we took a short bus trip near the top of the mountains to an area that still had snow (although it was meeting rapidly in the spring heat). Nice little area with a couple of hawks/eagles circling around in the updraft.

    After taking some photos we headed back down and had a little picnic in the grass. A couple of short stops for some more photos with the sheep/cows/horses before we left the area. Getting a bit fatigued by all the grasslands and mountain views and starting to look forward to some different tourist activities once we leave Xinjiang.

    We had a Chinese BBQ for dinner. The first place we looked at has an awesome display of food, but on closer inspection it looked like some of the heat was old and had been sitting out for a while so we moved on to another vendor with fresher looking food (which was 100% the right call). When looking around the streets and listening to the music, you would be excused for thinking you had left China and ended up in the Middle East.

    At the end of our meal (about 10pm) we enjoyed watching a pretty little sunset. Back to the hotel for some rest with a long (at least 10h) drive back to Urumqi tomorrow.
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  • Dag 41–43

    Kurdnin Scenic Reserve & Skyhawk Mesa

    12 mei, China ⋅ ☁️ 17 °C

    After having a blast exploring Kalajun Scenic Farms Reserve, Vela caught some sort of bug, causing a mild fever and sore throat. This meant a couple of slightly quieter days. We did spend one night glamping in Kurdnin scenic reserve. Fortunately there was a heater in our tent but we still didn't get the best sleep. Our luck also ran out and while in Kurdnin we had drenching, misty rain - not ideal for camping. We made the best we could of the situation.

    After Kurdnin we headed for another little town - Nalati - nearby to another scenic reserve. After a good night's sleep with a solid roof over our heads, it was time to get some fresh air and stretch our legs. So we hit the Skyhawk Mesa hiking trail. 2777 steps taking us from 1500m to 1800m - it was a reasonably demanding hike.

    Vela still wasn't 100% but managed to get about halfway before turning back with Sunny and Clara. Nathan and Mei continued on to the top and were greeted with some pretty epic views of the mountains and valleys. While they were busy getting their photos, there was some movement in the ground nearby. A little video showed this busy little guy, beavering away conducting earthworks. We think it was a vole.

    On the way back down Mei taught Nathan some new Mandarin - Wo Men Hui Lai Liao, meaning "we made it back!" There were also some interesting/funny motivational signposts on the trail, too focused on making it to the top on the way up, Nathan stopped to have a read of them on the way down and took photos of the best ones.

    Ready for a nice hot shower to recover from that one!
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  • Dag 40

    Exploring Kalajun

    11 mei, China ⋅ ☀️ 21 °C

    We woke up this morning to find that our host was telling us the truth about the mountains. It was still quite hazy though so they didn't photograph very well (hence very heavily edited images to try and show what we could actually see). We were treated to a delicious little breakfast by our hosts, who were absolutely amazing, before we set out to explore more of Kalajun.

    On our way we saw fields full of yellow flowers, and our brains were thoroughly messed with as there was snow on the roadside, even though it was close to 30 degrees outside... We headed to a spot called "Flying Falcons Scenic Outlook" which had a great view of the mountains. Song the way we were overtaken by a herd of noisy sheep being driven to new fields. We saw a couple of birds of prey in the sky, soaring on the air currents.

    After we'd had enough of the scenery, we tried to head to a nearby canyon which is full of adventure tourism activities, but the wind has really got up by this point (struggling to open the car does), and Vela even joked "how did we end up back in Wellington?" Because of the wind, the gondola was closed, so we took a couple of photos before leaving Kalajun and heading to our accommodation. We were lucky to find our accommodation had a hot tub, so we made use of that, Nathan a little gingerly due to his sunburn (maybe a result of the geomagnetic storm causing all the crazy lights in the night sky?)
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  • Dag 39

    The road to Kalajun

    10 mei, China ⋅ ☀️ 25 °C

    A slow morning today. After such delicious samsa yesterday we returned to the same little shop and were treated to watching the process of making the samsa. Today they were making them in a slightly different shape called Palmoudan (I think that's what he was saying) which basically meant it was pressed using your hand. Once they were further, the samsa are stuck to the inside of a clay oven to bake before being scraped off to eat. Vela's mum even had a little dance with the kitchen team to some local Xinjiang music!

    After lunch we made a quick stop at a little town called Tekesi famous for its layout of an 8-diagram which is essentially 4 ring roads in the shape of an Octagon with roads segmenting them through their points. The shape is significant in Buddhist culture. Vela flew the drone to capture some of the shape, but the drone is limited to about 120m so we couldn't quite show the whole layout - but I'm sure you get the idea. Before leaving we made sure to sample some locally made ice cream.

    Then it was onwards to our main destination - Kalajun. Kalajun is kind of difficult to describe, it felt like we were staying on a farm (which I guess we were) but it was also a scenic park with tourist activities. The best label I could put on it would be a "scenic farm reserve." On our way in we drove up steep cliffs to where the landscape turned into Highland meadows with rolling hills. We passed herds of sheep, cattle and horses, and there were plenty of marmots doing their thing in the fields too. We arrived at our Mongol Bao camp for the evening, we got much better vibes here than in Sayram Lake. Apparently there is a view of snowy mountains from the Mongol Bao, but we couldn't see anything due to the haze.

    Our host offered us to head on a short horse ride, about 2 hours, which we quickly accepted. It was great fun walking the horses over to the forest and back, although they might have needed a bigger horse for Nathan...

    After our mini trek, we returned to our Mongol Bao and had a lamb hotpot for dinner before settling down for some much needed rest.
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  • Dag 38

    Through the mountains to Yining

    9 mei, China ⋅ ☀️ 32 °C

    Shorter day on the road today, with just 3 hours driving. Before leaving, wet find a spot and played with the drone for a bit. We headed through the mountains and stopped for a couple of photos, admiring the much greener grass in the valley with the backdrop of the snow capped mountains.

    We then made our way out of the mountains and into Yining. We had a very late lunch at about 4pm (remembering the clocks are a bit weird as they run on Beijing time, so are at least 2 hours out from what we'd expect based on the sun). Lunch consisted of these little lamb filled pastries called Samsa, which were amazing and reminded us a little of an NZ meat pie or sausage roll. We had these with a side of lamb soup.

    We then checked into our hotel, which is quite a famous hotel which was originally for diplomats from the old USSR back in the day. The room we had was right at the top on the 12th floor, and was a suite split over two levels with far more space than we could ever need. It cost about 600 yuan ($150nzd), so was quite a steal.

    We headed back out into town for some Majiang. We upped the stakes but Nathan and Vela didn't quite get the rub of the green, but Sunny outdid everyone - the only player who won any money. After getting a bit carried away with the Majiang we had dinner at about midnight, BBQ lamb and beef. Yum!
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