Urumqi and Kashgar

Finally Kashgar! This area in China shares borders with Mongolia, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kirghistan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India. Good news, this is our last stop in China, from here we take a two day bus that will take us up to 4700 meters to reach PAKISTAN!!!

And the city?... mmm, not really worth seeing, unless its through a greenish old plastic, floating.

In Urumqi, the capital of the province and the furthest city on earth from the sea.

On our way to Xinjiang province. This is also called the Independent state of Turkestan. The main ethical population here is, or maybe was by now, Uighur. This is mainly a Muslim area where the caravans of the silk road crossed to get from east to west. Its only desert, and what's left of the Muslim old city is barely nothing. Chinese have this subtle way of burying what ever is in their way...

Lanzhou

At the station, 25 hours awaited for Monica on the train to Shanghai and 23 hours for us on the opposite direction, to Urumqi.

Farewell lunch in Lanzhou, Gansu Province. After two weeks we now split our ways. Monica is going east and we, west!

This is Hot Pot, good stuff you get around here.

So we decided to see at least the Pandas in Chengdu, where they have a very nice research center. This is the Red Panda, cousin of the one we all know.

After Shangri-La we tried at least through 3 different places -along Sichuan province, Gansu province and Quinghai province- to access villages outside the TAR (Tibetan Autonomous Region) that used to be part of what Amdo and Kham provinces were in the past. There, it is said that you see real Tibet, but outside of what the Chinese call Tibet. But strangely we where not aloud to go any where. All we got at the ticket office was: "You... not aloud!!!"

Shangri-La

After Tiger Leaping Gorge we continued north, towards the border of Yunnan and Sichuan provinces, to reach Zhongdiang, or how the Chinese re-named it for touristic purpose: Shangri-La... Now, the great thing about it is that you get to see real Tibetan reductions and an impressive Gompa.

Tiger Leaping Gorge

and on the way back...disaster. There are always landslides at Tiger Leaping Gorge.

:)

staying at Naxi homes on the way

We escaped from Lijiang to Tiger Leaping Gorge together with Johan from Holland -professor in African Studies at London, plus Fortunato and Giusseppe from Italy, for a three day trek through the gorge.

Dear Mao

Lijiang

The multiplicity of the minority ethnic groups that live within what today is known as China. Some exist as simple tourist attractions, others survive the fact of being slowly erased.

nico's favorite, chicken feet stew!

los pata de chancho

Again in the market, where you can delight with all sort of interesting stuff

In Lijiang, former capital of the Naxi, we experienced the real Naxi orchestra, which consists of musicians above 85?...

Dali and Lijiang

then we went to Lijiang...

In our search for former tibetan regions we first arrived at Dali,

water buffalo

Li River

after so much sun we decided to leave towards the mountains, in search of Amdo and Kham

...we opted for green salad with tomatoes, some chillies, oil and vinegar!!

After rafting down the Li river we got hungry so we decided to go to the market, for a change... we found many options such as duck, chicken, pigeon, pork, fish, frog... dog, rat, snake and something we could not tell, so...

Here we meet Monica, one of Coti's friends from school back in Chile. She is on a long trip as well, therefore took a year off for traveling around Asia with a day by day agenda, mmm... interesting! Now our common goal is to get as close as possible to Tibetan culture.

Yangshuo

Malaria... mosquito around!!!!!!!!!!!?

...also a lot of tourist attractions, by the way this is the pick of the day by Coti.

After our ethnic minority search, we plunged down to Guangxi province, Yangshuo at Li River. Full of "Chinese mountains" and a great sunny sky.

Dimen

...when they are born a tree is chosen which will be later used to build their coffin, once that person dies

Dimen is a Dong minority village. Their history is oral in the way of songs.

Finally... we made it to Dimen and our search for the real Chinese village was accomplished. After trains, buses, hitching and walking, we found this amazing place. No entrance fee, no tourists, no Han Chinese... nobody except the villagers and us.

Fenghuang

After three days... and since we where close to Guizhou province... we decided to give a try to find Dimen, a small little village which you can't even find in maps

impossible to say no

As we arrived to Fenghuang we were getting closer to the ideal Chinese village that we were searching. The whole town is arranged along a river and the houses hang over wooden columns. Here we tasted the smoked pork meat with bamboo shoots and other spicy creatures...