Traveling tips: When in China, have someone with you who speaks Chinese. Or have detailed instructions written in Chinese. One night, the hotel wrote the name and address of a Peking Opera house. The taxi driver looked at the piece of paper and scratched his head. Nevertheless we set off and 40 minutes later, I […]
See the full report from Mariam & Jono on the “Guest Section” Mariam and her father will arrive in Beijing on June 8 after driving from London starting May 1 www.carnet.co.uk/rallyoffice June 5-8 Waiting for the Rally After Julia and Ludovic left, I had a few days in Beijing to wait for Mariam and her […]
May 24-25, Beijing, China I arrived back in Beijing on May 24th. This time instead of traveling with a tour group, I would either be on my own or with my friends Julia and Ludovic. They had booked a room for me at LuSong Yuan Hotel which is a charming hotel in the old hutong […]
Mariam reporting on Monday May 1, 2000 (see the photos on the page “Meet Mariam and Jono”) Hi everybody Today, Monday 1 May 2000, my dad ( Abdul Aziz Al-Accad) and (husband) Jono (Jonathan Prior) and mechanic- David Ellison will have left from Tower Bridge in London on the round the world Rally. We are […]
Wed-Fri, April 12-14 As we leave the ship for the flight to Shanghai which is the tour\’s last stop, I notice everyone starting to make the mental switch for going home. I am looking forward to the beach in Thailand and some time to myself. People are talking about flights home, when they will next […]
Chongqing is located at the confluence of the Yangtzi and Jialing rivers. In the evening, we boarded the East Queen Cruise Ship waiting for us on the Yangtzi River. It is the most luxurious ship. Our cabins are on the 2nd floor with picture windows, TV, mini-bar, fluffy bathrobes and mini bathrooms. The top floor […]
Sunday, April 9 This morning, we flew from Lijiang to Chongqing (via Kunming). All flights were on time so we arrived in time for a Sichuan lunch. Everywhere we go we have been enjoying enormous banquets featuring local specialities. Sichuan food is the spiciest of all Chinese food. Today’s chicken dish was
Lijiang is another valley city surrounded by high mountains. It’s a 4 hour drive from Dali through the mountains and fields. Lijiang is the poorest area we’ve been to so far. The land surrounding the town is of poorer quality than in Dali. There are just over 1.8 million people in the area, 57% of […]
Thursday, April 6 Dali is a valley about 5,500 ft high surrounded by snow-capped mountains. It is the center of the Bai people who are related to the Thais and have a culture going back about 3000 years. The old town is mainly a pedestrian zone full of tourist shops. The local specialty is marble […]
April 4-5 Travel in China is an inexact science. Flights leave when they can, not when they?re scheduled. We spent 4 hours waiting for our plane to arrive in Kunming. The airport is fairly basic but we were getting used to unpredictable flights. We?re heading for a minority area of China. 93% of the population […]