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 ! "

China (Pingyao, Shanxi) Sept 2009 D-19

Map of Pingyao, Shanxi, China

After Luoyang, I took a sleeper train departing 20.02 ( CNY164) to Pingyao in Shanxi province. This 2,700 year old ancient walled city, a UNESCO heritage site is very well preserved since the Yuan, Ming & Qing dynasties. Upon arrival in the early morning at the railway station, I had a bowl of noodles from a nearby food stall and then took a bicycle rickshaw (CNY5) to the old city of Pingyao. I stayed one night at Zhengjia International Youth Hostel (CNY10 dorm) - the cheapest hostel I had stayed for this China trip. This old courtyard hostel was fully booked when I checked in. Most of the hostels in Pingyao are of the courtyard style guesthouse, retaining the old world charm and the traditional Qing outlook. As the hostel prices here were so cheap, most travelers stayed on for additional days to unwind themselves and enjoyed the slow pace of life here.

" Pingyao" is one of the oldest city in China. It's 2,700 yr old walled city still survives today ! Best preserved traditional architecture, gray-brick courtyard homes, extravagant family mansions & a Ming city wall, Daoist & Buddhist temples, China's first commercial bank, Yamen - Pingyao's old charm will take you back to the memory lane of the good old days.

1) Pingyao Ancient City, Shanxi (entrance fee CNY120) - There are some 20 tourist sites for you to visit and explore in the old city - so take your time as most sites are close to one another and within walking distance if you are staying in Yamen street. one of the four main streets. However, the ancient city wall (built in Zhou dynasty 827-728 BC) is 6km long so you may have to hire a motor rickshaw to ferry you around. The Bell Tower is located in Ming Qing Jie, the town center where you find most of the tourists.

2) Xianya Shu or Yamen magistrate court, Pingyao Ancient City - Well preserved and worth a visit. I really enjoyed watching a mocked old Yamen court proceeding or trial conducted by a few local officials impersonating a district court judge acting as a persecutor and one acting as an accused. The trial was conducted in a modern day context and the conversation between the prosecutor and accused was very amusing and comical !

3) The old Securicor house, Pingyao Ancient City - Offered protection and escort large sums of money from one province to another and this sort of service was well sought after by wealthy business people during the Ming and Qing dynasties. Robbers and bandits were notorious during that period.

4) Risheng Chang Financial House Museum and Bai Chuan Tong, Pingyao Ancient City - China's first bank or financial house in the 18th century. The concept of cheque and money deposits were first introduced here.

5) Chenghuang Mia, Caishen Miao & Zaojun Mio, Pingyao Ancient City - Three Taoist Temple in a row honoring the City God, God of Wealth & the Kitchen God.

The Secret of Life - No point using limited life to chase unlimited money"

China (Datong, Shanxi) Sept/Oct 2009 D-20, D-21, D-22 & D-23

Map of Datong, Shanxi

To go to Datong, taking a bus (CNY25) from Pingyao to Taiyuan is the best transport option. From Taiyuan, I then took a train (CNY30) to Datong. As it was getting closer to the Chinese National Anniversary Day (1 Oct) , all the hard and soft seat train tickets were sold out but I managed to buy a ticket without a seat and this means I had to stand for the first 2-3 hours until some passengers vacate their seats along the way. I departed Taiyuan at 13.26 and arrived in Datong at 19.30. 

As I was not able to pre-book a youth hostel under the Hostelworld website, it was a bit of struggle when I arrived in Datong to find a suitable hotel. Most budget hotels here catered for the local tourists and foreigners can only check into 3-4 star hotels. But lady luck was with me as while walking around the train station, a local guy approached me and recommended that I stay in Tai Jia hotel (CNY60 single room) affiliated with CITS, a well known tourist agency in China. I stayed for 4 nights in this hotel (although 2 nights were suffice) as Beijing had imposed a restriction on the movement of foreigners staying near the Tianamen Square from 30 Sept to 2 Oct due to the 60th Anniversary celebration. I was able to watch the live telecast of this grand event in my hotel room but I really enjoyed my time in Datong.

1) Yungang Grottoes, Shanxi (entrance fee CNY60) - A UNESCO heritage site. Located 16km from Luoyang. You can take a public bus (N04) from the railway station to Xinkaili and then take bus No3 to the Yungang Grottoes. The stone carvings in Yungang started between 460 and 524 during the Wei dynasty. Yungang caves have some 50,000 Buddhist statutes and some caves have drawings, images and figures of Indian divinities, Shiva & Vishnu.

2) Hanging Monastery, Shanxi (entrance fee CNY60) - Founded in Northern Wei dynasty (386-534), the hanging monastery clinging to the side of a cliff, is composed of 40 connected halls supported by wooden stilts. The monastery contains Buddhist, Daoist and Confucian chambers. I shared a taxi (CNY70 each) with 2 travelers from Bangladesh to the monastery, located 75km from Datong in the town of Hunyuan. You can opt for a CITS day tour bus (CNY220) which takes you to Yungang Grottoes & Hanging Monastery (inclusive of entrance fees)

3) Cave dweller's house, Shanxi - On the way to the Hanging Monastery, our group had an interesting visit to an elderly local cave dweller's home.

4) Jiulong Pi (Nine Dragon Wall), Datong, Shanxi - Paid CNY10 to see this Ming dynasty Nine Dragon Wall in the city center of Datong.

5) Drum Tower, Huayan Si (AD1140), Shanhua Si / Five Dragon Wall (Tang dynasty), Honqi Square, Datong - All these tourist sites are in Datong city center, easily reachable by local bus transport.

6) Local food in Datong, Shanxi - Some of the local food I savored, cheap & tasty - charcoal fired sweet potatoes (CNY4-5 per piece), roasted chestnuts (CNY20 per kati) , beef and squib satay sticks (CNY2.50-3.00 per stick), lok lok ( strings of vegetarian food dipped in boiling water-CNY0.50 per stick) , black rice porridge, meat and vegetarian dumplings (CNY5-6 per set meal)

Datong in Shanxi province has abundance of coal. One third of China's coal is extracted in Shanxi. Dusty roads and polluted airborne coal dust can infect your lungs - so be prepared for it. Datong is 5 hour by train from Beijing - ideal for a short stay and the main attractions are Yungang Grottoes & Hanging Monastery.

The Secret of Life - Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer "