James: A proper entry or three will be coming soon, but at the moment we are travelling around Sichuan, and not really able to use the computer. We're currently at 3000m above sea level in Jiuzhaiguo, with a tenuous link to the internet via a 3G modem. For the first time in a while, we are properly warm, with a hotel room that has 24 hour airconditioning (that works!) and hot water during the times that matter. It's funny that it seems expensive and luxurious, when it's only about $12 each per night. One place we stayed at was about $4 each per night... but had a pillow and doona that smelled of sweat and cigarettes, and hot water that required significant negotiation with the owner to ask them to change the battery in the water heater. Oh, and to get there we had to cross the channel that had been dug to provide a new subway... a 30m deep pit with operational earth-moving machinery and construction workers giving advice about where to climb. At least the climbing skills were useful, as they were put to the test in JZG today, when we used them to access closed walkways in the park.
Hong: Sorry to disappoint all of you who are expecting something more "exotic" to have happened to us. But we have survived a city of dust, a bum-splitting 10hr bus trip through earthquake rubble, landslides and rock falls, a freezing old town without any functioning heating device, except our fevers, which stemmed from URTI of dubious origin... (James' assertion: probably the expectorated bacteria of someone in Sichuan; they spit everywhere, including on buses and on carpet!) Jiuzhai is very beautiful, as an understatement, and please be prepared to be inundated in James' photographs, as well as an album of the photo maniac James taking photos during this trip. Hmmm... what else.... Oh, and bought a Tibetan maroon lacquered coconut, being sold as a special Tibetan fruit that grows in the mountains and taste like sour milk. Ours tasted like normal coconut milk...
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