China Sept/Oct 2009

Map of Provinces of China 

" My 29 days solo visit to China (Chengdu, Jiuzhaigou, Chongqing, Yichang, Luoyang, Pingyao, Datong, Beijing & Tianjin) - fulfilling my dream to see the UNESCO Heritage Sites (Civilized and Natural Wonders) in China (10/9 - 8/10/09) & sharing the joy in China's 60 year national anniversary celebrations in Tiananmen Square, Beijing "

Total Expenses incurred (29 days) = CNY6,000 + Rm805 = Rm3,865

Airline Flight Itinerary: Booking Date: 7-8-09 & 7-9-09
Flight No: AK102
Depart LCCT Kuala Lumpur on Thursday 10-9-09 at 06.40
Arrive Guilin, China on same day at 10.40
Return: D72613 Depart Tianjin Airport on Thursday 8-10-09 at 10.20 ( original time 08.20)
Arrive LCCT KL on Thursday on same day at 16.35
1) Air tickets: KL>Tianjin return -Rm692; KL>Guilin one way Rm400.90 (incl meals, GoInsure & Skybus)
2) AIG Travel Insurance: Rm113
3) Land transport:
Train tickets-CNY583
Bus & Metro-CNY713
4) Local tour package ( incl transport, entrance fees, meals & hostel, Ins & cable car): CNY2,632
- Jiuzhaigou & Huanglong (CNY980)
- Yangzi River (CNY950)
- Dazu day tour + entrance fee (CNY80) = CNY200
- Shaolin Temple day tour + lunch+ entrance fee (CNY100) = CNY190
- Hanging Monastry (taxi) + entrance fee (CNY60) = CNY132
- Eastern Qin Tombs day tour + entrance fee (CNY110) = CNY180
5) Entrance fees: CNY552
- Sanxingdui Museum, Sichuan (CNY80-CNY15 discount for Panda card pass holder)
- Leshan Grand Buddha, Sichuan (CNY90)
- QinYang Gong, Chengdu (CNY10)
- Longmen Grottoes, Luoyang (CNY80)
- Xuan Zang birth place,Luoyang (CNY30)
- Kwang Hua Si, Luoyang (CNY15)
- Pingyao ancient city (CNY120)
- Yungang Grottoes,Datong (CNY60)
- Nine Dragon Screen,Datong(CNY10)
- Old Summer Palace, Beijing (CNY25)
- Site of Pekingman, Zhoukoudian (CNY30)
- Confucian Temple (CNY10)
- Temple of the Land (CNY7)
6) Food & groceries: CNY670
7) Sundries: CNY150
8) Hostels:CNY700

Travel itinerary:

Kuala Lummpur > Guilin > Chengdu > Jiuzhaigou & Huanglong Chengdu > Chongqing > Yangzi river cruise > Yichang
Yichang > Luoyang > Pingyao > Datong > Beijing > Tianjin > Kuala Lumpur

After my return from the Europe/Tran-Siberian trip on 16 June 09, the idea of visiting China crossed my mind. In mid-August. Air Asia had a sales promotion and I took the opportunity to buy online a return ticket (Rm692) to Tianjin. For this China trip, I had in mind to visit the various UNESCO sites and civilised & natural wonders of the world in Northern provinces of China ie Heilongjiang (Harbin), Lioning (Shenyang), Jilin (Changchun), Inner Mongolia (Manzouli) and then travel south to Shanxi, Sichuan, Chongqing, Henan & Beijing.

I had a bad start for this China trip as I missed my Air Asia flight from KL to Tienjin on 7 Sept 09 (departing 01.00). I got mix up with the time thinking the departure time is at 1.00pm. As I had already pre-booked all the hostels in China, I had to find an alternative plan so to right the wrong, I decided to buy a one way ticket (Rm400) flying off on 10 Sept from KL to Guilin (departing 06.40) As a result of this last minute change, I have to re-schedule my travel and decided to start my travel from the southern provinces and skip the three north east provinces as planned earlier.

On 10 Sept, I had another bad experience. I missed the airport Skybus at Sentral Station - the last bus left Sentral at 22.30 and I missed it by 15 mins. My wife had to drive me all the way to the airport.

For this China trip, I visited 11 UNESCO sites, 1 Natural Wonder and 1 Civilised Wonder of The World. As my Oct 09 visit coincides with the China's 60 year's anniversary celebration, I took the opportunity to visit the Tiananmen Square and the two iconic Olympic stadiums ie Bird Nest & Water Cube. A happy ending indeed though I had a bad start from the beginning ! You will probably concur with me after seeing the pictures I had posted in this travel blog.

As I was about to pen off, I have just received an email from one of my retiree colleagues forwarding a powerpoint attachment entitled "Secrets of Life" for retirees . I took the liberty to quote some of the words of wisdom expressed in the slides in this travel blog. Happy reading !

UNESCO sites:
1) Leshan Grand Buddha, Sichuan
2) Sanxingdui Museum, Sichuan
3) Dujiangyan Dam, Sichuan
4) Jiuzhaigou Nature Reserve, Sichuan
5) Huanglong Nature Reserve, Sichuan
6) Dazu Rock Carving Museum, Chongqing
7) Longmen Caves, Henan
8) Pingyao Ancient City, Shanxi
9) Yungang Grottoes, Shanxi
10) Eastern Royal Tombs of Qin Dynasty, Beijing
11) Site of the Peking Man at Zhoukuodian, Beijing

Natural Wonder of the World:
12) Yangzi River

Civilised Wonder of the World
13) Old Summer Palace

Travel highlights :

1) Guilin, Guangxi - I had been to Guilin, Yangshuo & Li Jiang River with my family members in 2004. Just a stopover for a night and my next destination is Chengdu. Took this picture from a train to Chengdu.



2) Leshan Grand Buddha (UNESCO heritage site), Sichuan - 233ft tall. World largest stone sculptures of Buddha, carved out of a mountain. Built in AD713 by a senior monk, Haitong and completed 90 years after his death.

3) Sanxingdui Museum (UNESCO heritage site), Chengdu, Sichuan - houses one of the most remarkable collections of ancient sculpture, masks & ritual bronzes in China dating back to 14th century BC !

4) Dujiangyan Irrigation Project (UNESCO heritage site), Sichuan - Built in 3rd century BC by a famous engineer Li Bing to divert fast flowing water from Min River into irrigation canals benefitting a million hectares of land in Sichuan.



5) Jiuzhaigou Nature Reserve (UNESCO heritage site), Sichuan - Incredible ! A fairyland ! A world natural heritage, a world biosphere reserve and a "Green Globe 21" site. A must see world heritage site in China.



6) HuangLong Natural Park (UNESCO heritage site), Sichuan - The world largest travertine formation landscape. Quite similar scenery to that of Pamukkale in Turkey when I visited the place in Sept 08. Waterfalls and terraced, colored limestone ponds of blue, yellow, white & green created a natural beauty out of this place.



7) Dazu Rock Carving Museum (UNESCO heritage site), Chongqing - built between 892 and 1249, the site has extensive Buddhist cave paintings, sculptures and carvings. Among the 4 grottos I had so far visited (Dun Huang, Longmen, Yungang), Dazu is perhaps the most sophisticated and unusual. The carvings carried the Buddhist images, Daoist and Confucian statues and themes.

8) Yangzi River Cruise (a natural wonder of the world), Chongqing - despite the building of the Three Gorges dam, I think it is worthwhile to take a 3-4 day cruise to admire the natural beauty of the Three Georges and the surrounding environment.

9) Yichang, Hubei - the gateway city to the massive Three Gorges hydroelectric project at Sandouping, 40km from Yi Chang. Major battles were fought in this place during the Period of Three Kingdoms. 

10) Longmen Caves (UNESCO heritage site), Luoyang, Henan - More than 100,000 images and statues of Buddha were carved into the cliff walls of Longmen caves during the Northern Wei dynasty from AD494 over a period of 200 years !

11) Pingyao Ancient City (UNESCO heritage site), Shanxi  - this 6km Ming dynasty city wall has a very well preserved traditional Han Chinese city inside, the old heritage architectural buildings resembled to that of imperial China !

12) Yungang Caves, Datong, Shanxi (UNESCO heritage site) - the caves have 50,000 Buddhist statutes and stretch for 1km east to west and were carved between 460 and 465 during the Wei dynasty.

13) Hanging Monastery, Datong, Shanxi - built during the Northern Wei dynasty. This monastery clinging to the sides of a cliff has 40 connected halls supported by wooden stilts look like toothpicks from far !

14) Old Summer Palace (A civilised wonder of the world), Beijing - built by Emperor Qian Long using European design for their palaces, fountains and gardens. During the 2nd Opium War (1856-60) , all the palaces were destroyed by fire set by the French and British troops, only broken columns and marble chunks remain. The French and British soldiers looted all the precious & priceless items and some are now on displays in overseas museums. Others are no longer in trace and their whereabouts unknown.



15) Eastern Royal Tomb of Qing Dynasty (UNESCO heritage site), Beijing - houses the tombs of 5 emperors, 14 empresses & 136 imperial consorts. Emperor Qianlong & Empress Dowager Cixi tombs were plundered in the 1920s.

16) Site of Peking man at Zhoukoudian, Beijing (UNESCO heritage site) - discovered by a Swedish scholar in 1921. Some 200 fossils of cave dwellers dating back 18,900 years ago were dug out from several caves / sites in Zhoukoudian. The first Peking man fossil (700,000 years ago) was discovered in 1927 and it went missing during the 1941 Pacific War.

17) Tiananmen Square, Beijing - visit in conjunction with China 60th Year National Anniversary Celebration (1 Oct 2009) - I was one of the million visitors who visited the Tiananmen Square on 3rd Oct 2009 despite massive security, presence of SWAT police guards, closing of some subway underground stations, huge crowd & shutting of Chang Ann street to ensure the place is free of undesirable elements ! Tiananmen Square was off limits to outsiders & tourists from 30 Sept - 2 Oct to allow 60 floats, 8,000 soldiers and 100,000 civilians to participate peacefully in this grand event !

18)  Bird Nest Olympic Stadium, Olympic Park, Beijing - colorful lightings , musical fountains, festive moods (coincide with the traditional mooncake festival which falls on 3rd Oct); thousands pour into the Olympic Forest Park to share the nation's pride in celebrating the 60 year anniversary event.

19) Water Cube Olympic Stadium, Olympic Park, Beijing - Like the iconic Bird Nest Stadium, the Water Cube Olympic venue is one of the greatest modern architecture ever built in China. A really "feel good" feeling when I was there to admire these buildings.

" My wonderful trip to China, in pursuit of the World Heritage sites, civilized and natural wonders of China. UNESCO has over the last 30 years identified and approved 800 sites in 135 countries. By visiting these sites, it provides an avid traveler a historical memory of this planet

The Secrets of life - As long as it is physically possible, visit places you wish. Enjoy the life while you can ! "