Category Archives: China

Yunnan: Minorities in the Majority

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Rice fields cover the mountains like a yellow carpet in Yuanyang

Rice fields cover the mountains like a yellow carpet in Yuanyang

Following our excursion to the Guizhou province, a less visited province in China, we headed back to the more common tourist trails in the south-western province Yunnan. While our day in Kunming mainly served administrative purposes, we quickly headed on to the mountains in the southeast of the province. Besides the world-famous rice-terraces, Yuanyang offers many minorities in a very small space. We completed our visit with a monster bus tour through the mountains and small villages.

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Guizhou: Everything is Different Down South

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Typical Guizhou landscape

Typical Guizhou landscape

After a few days in the very dry north-west of China, which sports a lot of desert or desert-like landscape we made a larger move to southern China, to the Guizhou province. As one of the rainiest and poorest provinces in China, it was quite a contrast to what we have seen in the previous few months in China. On top of that, the menu changed quite a bit as well.

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The Hexi Corridor: Journey to the East

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The Danxia landforms near Zhangye

The Danxia landforms near Zhangye

After a little more than two days in Dunhuang we had to re-pack our backpacks for the first time. Luckily we had decided to travel light, such that we had to stow away much less tan 10kg each (plus the photo and electronics equipment). At 8:40am the bus left for Jiayuguan at the Western end of the Hexi corridor, which would be giving our trip the direction for the next few days.

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Dunhuang: Going West

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Dunhuang: The structure around the giant Buddha at the Mogao caves

Dunhuang: The structure around the giant Buddha at the Mogao caves

The last few days in Beijing occupied us with many last minute activities which had to be done when leaving a place: Moving, checking out at work, apartment, etc. At the very end we could enjoy a delicious dinner at the Opposite House, courtesy of the Swiss Society Beijing. Finally on Saturday, August 30 at 8:40 we sat in the airplane which should bring us to Xian from where we would connect to Dunhuang in the far West of Gansu Province. The goal was an experience in the desert, which I had left out three years ago when passing through the area in winter…
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Beijing: The Needle in the Haystack

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I spent the last stretch of my trip on the luxury compartment of the night train from Xian to Beijing Xi (Beijing West). The two big differences between the hard and soft sleeper compartments on Chinese night trains are the fact that the soft sleepers have lockable doors and only consist of 4 berths compared to 6 in the hard sleeper compartments. The bed though is just as hard. Once I had arrived in Beijing a started the search for the needle in the haystack.
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Xian: Beginning or End?

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For the Chinese, Xian is the beginning of the silk road. For me the capital of the Shaanxi province was the end of it. Two things struck my eye in this city: there were loads of Western tourists, which were not present further west in China and the city has, despite the strive for renewal in China, still some character.
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Xining: Nothing but Expenses

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After days on the traditional silk road it was time for a short deviation. This time the deviation led to Xining the capital of the Qinghai province in central China. Even though Xining also is part of the silk road network, the reason to visit the city was the multicultural society and the possibility to get a first grasp on Tibet. Thus far the idea…
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Kuqa: Unreal Experiences

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From Hotan on the Southern silk road around the Takla Makan I took the bus across the desert to the Northern silk road to Kuqa. Kuqa is famous for the Buddhist elements on the silk road, of which I did not see anything. I realized that there would be more possibilities to visit Buddhist caves on my trip and to visit many other places there was no time due to unexpected turns of events.
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