Unique Kathmandu!

We made it here a few days ago and have been enjoying the very different bustle of Kathmandu. We have not experienced an Asia like this before. I think the most distict features so far: The nervewracking traffic (the craziest ever), the mingling of Buddhism and Hinduism, and the unbelievable friendliness and generosity of the people. We had a day of sightseeing with Brent's old boss and friend, Jeff. We visited an ancient city, a very large "stupa" and a Hindu cremation site on the river. A bit freaky.....lots of people standing around watching bodies being burned. Monkeys roam freely and the culture here is distinct from the other areas we've been in. We are definitely not in Kansas anymore!

Got very little time to buy a few needed items before leaving tomorrow for our 22-day trek. We will be in the Kachenjunga area of Nepal (far Northeast corner). We are told to expect breathtaking scenery. We saw some of the Himalaya on the plane over, even Everest a little.

Reached the Tibetan Plateau!

We got here about two days ago, and have been getting used to the altitude, and enjoying the sunshine here in Tibet (I think we saw the sun twice since we have been in China). The people here are really nice and definetely have a different culture than the China we observed in Chengdu. We toured the Johkang Temple today (lots of giant buddhas), and shopped around a bit in the market surrounding the temple. Bought some interested Tibetan items. Yesterday we observed the Potala Palace from afar, Wow its big! The Chinese are really cashing in here on the tourism.

Tomorrow morning we fly to Kathmandu, Nepal to meet up with the Americans we will trek with for the next 26 days. We are excited to start the trek, we have been looking forward to it for many months- should be an amazing experience!

QingCheng Mountain

This was our big day-excursion out of the city to see the more natural side of China. As I had mentioned earlier, I have wonderful relatives (Kdell and Cheryl Bagley, from Wyoming) living and teaching in Chengdu so we all went together.

We booked a van and driver through our fantastic guesthouse and left around 8am. The drive was around 2.5 hours toward the west mountains. Funny thing about driving from the city to the mountains; the city air is super smoggy and the air in the mountains is very misty (like the typical misty Chinese scenes we've all seen in movies and pictures). As you make the transition, the air quality never appears to change. Your mind knows one must be smog and the other mist, but they look identical. This also gives the reader some idea of just how smoggy it is here in the city. Leah and I literally have not seen the sun since we arrived even though we've had many "cloudless" days.

The mountain was beautiful. Well, more specifically, the scenery along the trails was beautiful. You can't actually see the mountains around you due to the mist (visibility is around 100 yards).
Lush forest, waterfalls, mystical high mountain temple. Of course, we're still in China, so any beautiful natural attraction is turned into somewhat of a unnatural tourism park. Kdell and I figure we must have climbed over a 7000 stairs. There are cable cars for those who don't want to climb the stairs and people cooking warm snacks along the cement "trail". I don't think there was ever a moment when we were alone, free to take a picture at will without needed to avoid people. Also, you must pay multiple "entrance fees" at check points along the way, each one a bit closer to the top. They know you're not about to turn around and not pay since you've come all that way.

But, to be fair, we were warned and told all this going into it. We had a great time together enjoying some time outside the city. Definitely a highlight of our Chinese experience.

Panda-monium!

We've been told that if you stay in Chengdu, the Panda Breeding Research Center is a MUST SEE! We also heard that Sims Guesthouse (where we are staying) did a good tour, so we signed up on a whim. We left at 7am the next morning (a big change from our usual 9:30 am wake up) and drove about 30 minutes to the Center. This was our first real "tour" on this entire 6 month trip, so we were herded with the other half-asleep western tourists to the back of the center where they were feeding these furry guys.
They were kinda funny looking...mostly because they seemed so coordinated and ambidexterous. They have an apposable pseudo-thumb (sixth digit), so their hand action seems very human-like. They were all kicking back, and seemed unphased by the amount of people flashing pictures. They also exuded an attitude like they knew they ran the place, and had read the many signs that triumphed them as the "National Treasure."

Super cute giant fur balls living the easy life. Very interesting and fun experience. We learned that there are only approximately 1000 wild pandas left in China, found mostly in the west mountains. In all of the movies and info about the center it was never mentioned how or when they would be releasing them to the wild. They ARE doubling the size of the Center by next year. By this it seemed clear they are more interested in the tourist dollar than actually increasing the number of pandas in the wild-That's China!

Biking and Parking

We were either very courageous or just naive, but one day we decided to go for a city bike ride.

Chengdu has great street lanes used only by bikes, mopeds, and angry bus drivers. The only problem is, there are millions of people out using these lanes making them extremely crowded. One must be quite forceful and wide-eyed watching out for those nasty little mopeds (bikes equipped with a small motor and battery) crossing your path when you least expect it. 10 minutes into our bike ride, I was sure we wouldn't make it back to our guesthouse without having some sort of collision with something. I would have bet 100 bucks on it. We ended up biking for 5 hours all the way around this city of 12 million and didn't hit a thing.

We made it to a nice large park were it turns out flying kites is a very serious business. Older men had large spool-wheels holding at least 1000yrds of kite line! Some of their kites were so high you could just barely see them. How they kept them from crossing while sitting so close to one another is a mystery.

Had a great day and have first hand experience getting around Chengdu the way the locals do it.

Sichuan Opera

Leah talked me into this and I'm sure glad she did. Along with going to see the pandas, going to the Sichuan opera is supposed to be a must for tourist in Chengdu. Well, they're right. It's really something. Interesting music, bizarre comedy, girls juggling tables and large vases with their feet! The highlight is supposed to be the "face changing" performance. Men wear masks that are somehow composed of multiple layers on top of each other. As the men dance, they somehow unnoticingly make these mask layers disappear, exposing the next underlayer mask. Still not sure how they did it.

We all had a great time. Check out our videos on Youtube via our blog.