North Again

Well after a relaxing time in Yangshuo with much climbing and drinking over Xmas and New Year I left my climbing stuff with a newly acquired friend who works at one of the climbing companies (China Climb) and headed north with Craig, a lad from New Zealand whom I travelled from Xi'an down to Chengdu with.

Craig and myself left Yangshuo on the 3rd and headed north to LuoYang in Henan, where we went to see the Longmen Caves, the hostel we were at had some fairly cheap Chinese Baths, giving me the chance to relax for a few hours in the evening after sweating in a suna etc...

On the 5th we headed to Kaifeng which has a large and wacky night market full of great food which we wandered around for dinner after having visited the Iron Pagoda (not made of Iron). Where we were fortunate enough to witness a spot of fishing.

Then it was off to Ji'nan and Tai'an so as to go up Tai Shan, the holiest mountain in China and after all 6660 steps from 250M to 1545M and now after passing through the gate at the top I'm a celestial being... According to the book (lonely Planet).

The route has many small temples and lots of chinese writing on the rock faces one section in peticular is 25m high with 1m characters.

I'm now in Qingdao for some well ernt beer, and from where Craig gets the ferry over to Korea for his flight home, The town feels more European than Chinese which is more than likely to do with the legacy left behind by the Germans whom it was leased to in 1898 until 1914 when the Japanes held it until 1922 and then later it was a marine and naval base for the US from 1945 to 1949.

The plan is to then head down to Shanghai and then head back to Yangshuo via Hunan province, probably stopping at Fenghuang. not sure of any other stops yet.