Transit - New Zealand and Buenos Aires

Over the last week we have spent 2 days in Auckland as a stopover from Hong Kong and 4 days in Buenos Aires, the start of South America for us

In Auckland, we loved being back in western culture and spent a lot of time stocking up with essentials, enjoying western food, shopping and enjoying the scenery. Its a beautiful place and i think the countryside would be magnificent. Definitely a place to go back to in the future.

Buenos Aires was the next stop - we stayed in the Hilton (exellent business rates thanks to Bank of America :) which was a great base to explore the city and the restaurants. The food was unbelievable - i havent had so many steaks in 4 days - the reputation definitely stands for the food, culture and atmosphere in the city

Now in Peru, starting the final tour ... all in all a great start to the beautiful South American continent
Ciao!

Hong Kong, end of China tour

Our tour of China ended in Hong Kong, i loved the city. Its a great mix of western and asian culture and very vibrant. I can see why so many westerners stay there and it appeared to have a large ex-pat community.

All in all i really enjoyed China, and would recommend everyone to go if they havent. If you ignore the spitting, smoking EVERYWHERE and coughing of the locals its an unbelievable place rich in history and culture and beautiful scenery.

Hong Kong by night - view of Victoria harbour

Top of Victoria Peak

Yangshou China countryside for 3 days

This was definitely one of my highlights - the scenery was breathtaking, i have never seen something like that before. Think the photos will try show you why but it wont do it any justice (any cotton wool in my ears in any photos is a result of my ear drums bursting, and doing it properly i managed to burst both so the cotton wool could be coming out of 1 or both ears)

 Cycling around the country side, looking good in our helmets

Fi and i did a cooking class while in Yangshou (think James was happy he missed that while he unfortunately had to go to the UK for 2 days for his citizenship). The chef took us to the local market first, it was quite an experience.

Anyone tried dried rat (left) or dried pigeon (right)

 Or how about dog?? We werent allowed to take photos of the dog too close but you can still get an idea of how shocking this was to see. Fi was very upset to see the live cats alongside these dead dogs, we assume they were just awaiting their fate ...

Yangste river cruise and 3 Gorges Dam

photos from the Yangste river cruise and then at the 3 gorges dam

apparently this was a "clear" day at the Dam, sometimes you cant even see the first red structure behind us with all the mist in the area.

Yangshuo

After a 3 day cruise down the Yangste river, ending at the Three Gorges Dam (a massive project to save the people from the flooding of the river (or so they say - there seems to be pros and cons of the dam building) which was started in 1991 and completed in 2009) we disembarked and headed for the countryside - to a beautiful town called Yangshuo. Quite a mission getting there - 5 hour bus, overnight train and then a 2 hour public bus transfer! But it was definitely worth it. I have never seen scenery like that before. Was a great way to spend 3 days relaxing.

I cant get the photos to upload so will try again in the next few days.

hope you all are well and enjoying your December holidays and the run up to Christmas
Take care
Carol

Leshan and Chengdu

After a short flight to Chengdu, we spent our first day visiting the largest Buddha statue in the city of Leshan (about 2.5 hours outside of Chengdu). Its pretty impressive standing at 71m high, incredible how they carved this out of the sandstone mountain.

And the next day, one of my highlights of China was visiting the Panda reserve. With more than 50 pandas, we spent 3 hours wandering around the reserve. I was very impressed with how well they are looked after here. We could get really close to them too, luckily due to the time of the year (being colder now) the pandas were a lot more active than usual. Very cute!

Xi'an - city of the Terracota Warriors

After Shanghai we took our second overnight train to Xián - home of the famous terracota warriors. They are truly amazing to see, although i was slightly disappointed in that they are not fully excavated yet. i know it must take ages restoring the 2000 year old statues (mostly of warriors but also chariots, horses and weapons) but after 30 years i was expecting to see it all restored. However really unbelievable to think the emperor requested the people to build these warriors to protect him when he was dead, and there are approximately 8,000 warriors there. All life size warriors and fully prepared as if going to battle. A lot of it is still "underground" including the tomb of the emperor which they havent even tried to excavate as they believe they dont have the technology to do it and the tomb is protected by mercury (how they know that i dont know)

While in Xi'an we cycled around the city wall (its the oldest preserved city wall in China) which was good fun for 14 km around the city. good to be back on the bike again, although was done at quite a leisurely pace!