Distilled Memories
My first trip to China (if you don’t count Hong Kong) was in the nineties. This was pre-digital camera when the images are scanned from old prints, so they are a little grey and dull. That’s pretty well how the weather was when I was there- and the smog. It was really a good route right up through the middle, with a wiggle to the west and Sichuan/Yunnan) taking in all the major tourist sights. In those days touring was still very controlled and there was a lot of army surveillance, hotels were dubious and the many diverse sights amazing.
- Hong Kong, (Click for more recent trips)
- Guangzhou (amazing market)
- Li River (cormorant fishing and that wonderful karst scenery)
- Kunming and the Petrified Forest (pinnacles)
- Emei- one of the four sacred mountains (watch out for the monkeys who bite your fingers if you have food)
- Leshan and the giant Buddha (the biggest in the world - it really is huge and horribly vertigo inducing)
- Chengdu and the giant pandas (through glass anyway)
- Xian and the warriors (cameras were banned in those days (!)
- Beijing (see more recent Beijing trip here) and the Great Wall
