Nick Curry

We had a couple of great meals in the past 2 days – it isn’t always obvious to eat well in touristy places, so we were pretty happy to find good food. The first was an excellent Tibetan restaurant just outside of the old town, where we had fried yak meat with cumin and some delicious fried green beans, as well as an industrial quantity of Tibetan dumplings and one of the tastiest beers I’ve had so far, the very light and smooth Lan Cang beer (brewed locally somewhere in Yunnan).

The next day we headed off to Baisha by bicycle, a small nearby village which we hoped might be less touristy. The village itself was pretty quite, and although it was lined with knick-knack shops, we had an excellent meal in a menu-less shack on the street – a delicious tomato-based dish with spring onions and scrambled egg, very simply cooked but brilliant thanks to the extraordinarily fresh and strong tomato. It came with an excellent mushroom dish, of a type of mushroom I hadn’t seen before, cooked with onions and ginger, and some rice noodles; probably the second-best meal so far after the Tibetan, but so simple.

In Baisha we also met the world-famous Dr Ho, who has appeared on BBC and the french TF1 as well as in numerous newspaper articles worldwide. We know this because he showed us the clippings – he accosted us on the street, and very kindly invited us in for tea. We explained that we had no money at that point (it had all gone on the deposit for the bicycles), but he insisted on having us in and told us a little about his life, which does seem quite extraordinary – he quit medical school due to ill-health, taught himself how to use herbs in order to heal himself, and has been practising ever since. Among his accomplishment are having cured several people of leukemia and cancer, sometimes for very little or no money. It would have been interesting to talk to him longer, as he seemed like an interesting character, but as Ross pointed out, he had other people to talk to, so we made our way…

We got to Lijiang yesterday – the old town is very pretty, although it is completely overrun with tourists (at least they’re mostly chinese tourists though – it still feels authentic to us complete foreigners, although given the sometimes brutal development of modern facilities in historically sensitive sites, I’m not entirely sure how much more Chinese tourists appreciate their national heritage than their western counterparts).

Our hotel is great fun, a small traditional Naxi house in the middle of the old town by one of the many canals criss-crossing the city, with a small internal courtyard – all that extravagantly priced at 43 yens per night (around 3 pounds) including en-suite bathroom, so even cheaper than most of South America.

We had a quick walk around the old town, and climbed to the Looking to the Past Pavilion, which has a great view over the city. Among other attractions in the area are the Tiger Leaping Gorge, the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain, and a number of small villages and temples surrounding the city. We plan on hiring a couple of bicycles and heading out…

We got to Guangzhou at lunchtime today, from Hong Kong via the Through Train. Guanghzou is the capital of Guandong (Canton), China’s richest department – and it shows. The city is similar to Honk Kong, but without the extravagance – it also has it‘s bling-bling, but more moderated, and without the luxury goods (Hong Kong is full of YSL, Gucci and Armani stores; Guangzhou has Aimani, and Guzzo). Guangzhou is the place to get that 5 yen (40p) shirt you’ve always wanted, or that special USB key that states it has 8Gb memory…

Neon lights, flashing LEDs, blinkenlights… bling-bling-bling – welcome to Hong-Kong’s all night shopping superspecial. With shops closing at 11pm on average, you’ll never be lost for opportunities to shop. We spent our last evening before heading over to China in Kowloon’s Yau Ma Tei district, looking at electronic goods and sneakers. Then we went to the Ladies Market, and when we got bored of that we landed in Temple Street’s night market…

A conversation between Ross and the waiter in one of the first restaurants we went to in Hong Kong Island :

Ross got a Sprite to drink. And this is Hong Kong – what‘s it going to be like in China? This isn’t going to be easy…

Arriving in Hong Kong... Lights, neon, more lights, lots and lots of people.

Ross’ friend Kin came to pick us up from the airport, and took us out to dinner to a really tasty Thai place in Kowloon. We met his girlfriend Kimmee, and then went out for a drink in Soho on Hong Kong Island (Hong Kong is divided into four areas, the Island, Kowloon, the New Territories and the surrounding islands). By that time we were pretty exhausted, which was almost a shame as it was Halloween and the locals really do dress up…