And it's happened again.
While one of my life long ambitions has been to go to Tibet, the cost of a trip made it prohibitive on my current budget. The current regulations state that you have to go as part of an organized tour, and need a permit just to be able to get on the train to Tibet. I don't really like tours, and the prices being quoted (about 100 pounds a day) meant that I'd decided not to go to Tibet.
The plan was to go to Guilin and Yangshuo and see the Karst formations, and then head to Beijing with a few stop offs along the way, and with this in mind booked a plane ticket to Guilin.
And then – out of the blue – I get an e-mail from Antonia, who I'd met in Xian, saying she was putting together a trip to Tibet – did I want to come. The price was incredible: about 280 pounds for a 10 day tour. There's still accommodation, train tickets, food, and further permits to buy, but it looks like the total cost is going to be under 500 pounds. It's over budget – but I think I can catch back up later :-)
After having a quick think about it I sent an e-mail from the airport 30 minutes before I got on the flight to Guilin, saying that I'd go.
When I got to Guilin, I really couldn't be bothered looking around, as this is the fifth set of Karst formations I've seen in the last three months, and they do all look the same after a while. So I got up the next day and booked a plane ticket straight to Chengdu. While I had a few days to kill, I figured that I knew people in Chengdu, and didn't want to risk something going wrong and miss the tour.
Here's a few pics from my one day in Guilin:
Random street in Guilin:
Karst formations (yawn :-)
And so – it was on to my second flight in two days, and my third time in Chengdu in just under 3 weeks. In hindsight, it was a great decision as I had a lot of fun in Chendgu.
When I arrived – there were no beds anywhere as there's a big festival in China at the moment – so I chased around looking for a place to sleep. In the end Mix kindly agreed to let me sleep on a sofa at their hostel.
Having got a place to stay, Antonia told me that a group of people were going out to Karaoke and so I decided to go with them, even though I'd just got off the plane (it was about 11pm at this point) - and it was total fun.
Karaoke (known as KTV here) is a big deal. They have these huge places with loads and loads of rooms all with karaoke equipment in and after two hours (which felt more like 30 minutes), we all went to the Shamrock to watch the Champions League. Every single Brit supported Barca – while all the Chinese supported Man U (until the end when they switched sides). We couldn't have asked for a better result!!!!
Rather bizarrely I met a girl from the UK, Helen, who used to live in Oakworth – so we got chatting – and it turns out that we used to both work for Skipton Group Companies. And then we got chatting about where we'd worked and it turns out that we worked in the same building – on the same floor – just at other ends of the room! Kind of crazy – but it just goes to show: it's a small world.
I'm not going to say much more about Chengdu – except – lunch was fun (a story best left for another time :-).
It's funny how the group in Chengdu were mostly all leaving on the same day. So on our last night we ended up going for Hot Pot and Karaoke 12am to 5am – which was a perfect end to my time in Chengdu.
Hot Pot in Chengdu:
Wikked Willie - the Karaoke King:
God save the Queen. She ain't no human being:
:-)
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