Author Archives: Andrew

Khiva, Uzbekistan

Day 1 – A mammoth sightseeing session

First stop, the resplendent Pahlavon Mahmud Mausoleum

I’m sure you’ll breathe a sign of relief when I say I’m only going to mention our highlights of Khiva, as we managed to see nearly everything on the ticket!

First up was the Pahlavon Mahmud Mausoleum which isn’t much to look at from the street, but inside it reveals a tranquil courtyard with the main mausoleum straight in front and a room of tombs to the left. As we paused to take photographs, a family of worshippers followed us in with very smartly dressed children. The parents grabbed Julie and Jo for a spontaneous photo shoot..

Jo and Julie roped into a family photograph. This happened to us all quite a bit in Uzbekistan

Pahlavon Mahmud was a poet, philosopher and a wrestler (!), who later became the patron saint of Khiva. The tiling inside the main chamber and of Mahmud’s tomb is exquisite.

Inside Pahlavon Mahmud's mausoleum. Clockwise from top: The main dome (which needs a little seeing-to with a duster); Unmarked tombs of other khas to the west of the main hall; Pahlavon Mahmud's wonderfully tiled sarcophagus and tomb

Inside Pahlavon Mahmud’s mausoleum. Clockwise from top: The main dome (which needs a little seeing-to with a duster); Unmarked tombs of other khans to the west of the main hall; Pahlavon Mahmud’s wonderfully tiled sarcophagus and tomb

After a few more sights we took a break to climb the Islom-Hoja Minaret, the tallest one in Uzbekistan! The stairs inside were narrow and ascended anti-clockwise. The steps were steep which meant it was hard going but only took a little time to reach the viewing platform at the top.

Jo and Julie starting to climb the Islom-Hoja Minaret – Khiva’s newest (built in 1910) and Uzbekistan’s highest at 57m

Khiva from the top of the Islom Hoja Minaret

Having climbed his minaret, we then visited Islom Hoja’s Medressa which is also the Museum of Applied Arts. It seems that they’ve knocked through all of the student and teacher cells on the ground floor to create a long corridor of tiny rooms in which we found a very eclectic exhibition – woodcarvings, metalwork, carpets, clothing, books and stone carvings.

A taste of the variety on display in the Museum of Applied Arts. Clockwise from top-left: Walking through the walls of the medressa; Parcha robes for women (20th century); Stamps (21st century); A part of the ceiling from the Arabkhan mosque (17th century)

Next up we popped our heads into the Photography Museum which had a very impressive collection of old black and white photos of Khiva from the 1920s and 30s, including some exposed onto glass!

A small selection of the framed photographs of old Khiva on display in the Khiva Photography Museum

After we recharged our sightseeing batteries with tasty home-made somsas (triangular pasties about the size of your hand, similar to an Indian samosa but oven baked rather than fried) and copious amounts of tea in a little cafe in the bazaar just outside the East Gate, we tackled the lavishly decorated, massive Tosh Hovli palace – so big it’s in 2 parts!

The sumptuously decorated Tosh Hovli Palace courtyard

Details of the decorations in the Tosh Hovli Palace. Clockwise from top-left: The wooden pillars are just as elaborate as the tiled walls; Ceiling detail; Interior bedroom; Silk scarves for sale in the courtyard

In contrast to the Tosh Hovli Palace where seemingly every internal surface is decorated, our next stop was the Juma Mosque – my favourite of the day..

The underground Juma Mosque with it’s 218 carved wooden pillars was my favourite of the sights in Khiva

Just outside the walls to the north-west is the Isfandiyar Palace. We double-checked the map when we got there as it looked pretty non-descript from the outside and we were the only people there – besides a local guy sitting on the step.

Julie and Jo checking we’re in the right place, and reading up on the Isfandiyar Palace before we enter

But inside awaits the biggest assault to the senses all day..

CAPTION COMPETITION: Julie and Jo exclaiming over the chandelier in the completely over-the-top Isfandiyar Palace. It’s bold and bonkers and we loved it!

Every room overloaded our senses with colour and patterns. Somehow, it made complete sense that the only suitable furniture that wouldn’t cause further clashes would be mirrors..

We’d saved the Kuhna Ark for last because we’d read it was a good vantage point over Khiva at sunset. As we climbed up to the watchtower (which was 2,000 som extra, about 40p) we heard Uzbek pop-music, and found ourselves in the middle of a music video shoot!

Shooting for an Uzbek music video on the Kuhna Ark in Khiva

Dancer posing for us in-between shooting a music video in Khiva, Uzbekistan

Not only was she a great dancer, she was happy to pose for the multitude of tourists in between shots. We don’t know her name, but she was described as “the best” by the crew and, amazingly, we saw her again on the Uzbek MTV when we had dinner later that night!!

I got talking to a smartly dressed guy who was hanging around while the filming was going on, and through an interpreter I found out he was the singer who wrote the song she was dancing to! I haven’t been able to find his track (as I suspect it isn’t yet released), and there’s another famous Uzbek singer called Athambek. From his handwriting, I think his song is called “Noziga Boylaribgoldim” – if you find it please drop it into the comments below. Here’s a photo of Athambek..

Athambek, the Uzbek singer/songwriter I met in Khiva

The Kuhna Ark and city walls of Khiva, Uzbekistan

The Kuhna Ark and city mud walls of Khiva at sunset

Day 2 – Ancient Khorezm Mud Fortresses

As we’d seen pretty much everything on our list the day before, we arranged a 6-hour, half-day taxi tour of Ancient Khorezm. Here’s the introduction from the Lonely Planet..

The Amu-Darya delta, stretching from southeast of Urgench to the Aral Sea, has been inhabited for millennia and was an important oasis long before Urgench or even Khiva were important. The historical name of the delta area, which includes parts of modern-day northern Turkmenistan, was Khorezm.
The ruins of many Khorezmian towns and forts, some well over 2000 years old, still stand east and north of Urgench in southern Karakalpakstan. With help from Unesco, local tourism officials have dubbed this area the ‘Golden Ring of Ancient Khorezm’. The area’s traditional name is Elliq-Qala (Fifty Fortresses). – Lonely Planet, Central Asia, p202

The tour took us to three of the main qalas, starting with the square Kyzyl Qala. We caught a quick glimpse of it just before we turned off the main road and onto a bumpy dirt track, and as we rounded a small hill of dirt, the massive towering mud fortress stood in front of us..

The square Kyzyl Qala still standing after more than 2,000 years. An excellent example as we walked pretty much all the way around it before we found a way in!

Julie, Jo and I exploring Kyzyl Qala fortress. There aren’t any signs, fences or restrictions, which makes it all the more impressive that these fortresses are still in such good condition

Next up was the main temple complex of the Khorezm kings who ruled the area in the 3rd and 4th centuries, the massive Toprak Qala. We found a lot of the rooms were still visible, as were the doorways linking them. Nearby were the modern foundations of a recent excavation team.

Panorama of the massive Toprak Qala, home to the Khorezm kings in the 3rd and 4th centuries

Julie and Jo scaling the remains of Toprak Qala

The final stop on our qala gala were the 3 ruins of the very impressive Ayaz-Qala. Our driver gave us the choice to drive up the hill, walk down and pay an unofficial entry fee levied by the ger camp nearby, or park at the bottom and scale the walls, thereby avoiding the fee – we opted to storm the walls!

Saving the best ’til last – the massive 3-in-1 Ayaz-Qala. There’s a ground-level fort, the raised fort in the middle and main fortress on the edge of the cliff

Julie, Jo and I having scaled the walls of the Ayaz-Qala fortress. This one was our favourite as some of its tunnels were intact and we could crawl through them!

Thank you Khiva, the compact Silk Road city with the adorable stumpy minaret..

Silly poses with the Kalta Minor Minaret, Khiva

Us with the adorable, stumpy icon of Khiva, the Kalta Minor Minaret

P.S. Don’t forget the caption competition!

Tashkent, Uzbekistan

Chorsu Bazaar

The lovely tiled dome of Chorsu Bazaar is but the dusty tiled tip of this immense iceberg of a market

Chorsu Bazaar is the bustling heart of Tashkent. We love visiting markets anyway, so Chorsu was high on our list and after a few hours wandering through it, we think it’s a strong contender for the best market we’ve visited.

Inside the cool Chorsu dome are the various meat counters set out in concentric rings

This guy asked for his photo as he was restocking one of the butcher counters with fresh meat

The icon of Chorsu bazaar is the wonderful turquoise tiled domed hall that sits in the north-west corner and houses the meat market. Outside, we found rows of rice and spice sellers, rows of beautifully ripe vegetables – including tomatoes the size of baking apples – and trucks full of melons and watermelons! Further, we found household goods, shoe repairs, a high street-like two storey row of clothing shops and stalls and a cafe area. It was then we realised the dome is but a fraction of the size of this sprawling hub of sights, smells, tastes and trades.

Rows upon rows of fresh produce, like this one of potatoes

There were echoes of our experiences in Bangladesh markets where the traders would beckon us over wanting their photograph taken or for us to pose with them!

In a quiet corner of the bazaar, our good friend Jo (whom you might remember joined us in Vietnam last year) was roped into a photo while buying some dried apricots

Kulkedash Medressa

The Kulkedash Medressa sits on a hill in the south-eastern corner of Chorsu Bazaar, and is where the busses drop off from the airport

The Kulkedash Medressa is a welcome slice of serenity after the claustrophobic bustle of Chorsu Bazaar. Medressa translates as school, and is akin to our higher education or university system; students learn a wide syllabus of sciences and Islam.

The lush serenity of the Kulkedash Medressa courtyard

As well as teaching rooms and student accomodation, teachers have small offices and as we walked around a few of them were open. When we popped our heads around the door of the calligraphy room, the friendly gentleman inside came to the door and invited us in. His English was excellent, and after he showed us the various styles of Arabic script, including a mosaic style used on minarets and diagonal diamond patterns, he wrote Julie’s name in Arabic on a scrap of paper!

Calligraphy teacher writing Julie’s name in Arabic. He explained that he travels quite a bit to advise the decorative restoration and construction work of Islamic buildings within Uzbekistan

Amir Timur Square

Statue of Amir Timur, the national hero of Uzbekistan

Born around 1330, Amir Timur is the Central Asian Chinggis Khan – regarded as a military genius and tactician who sought to reunify the great Khan’s empire, his Tirmurid dynasty extended from southeastern Turkey, Syria, Iraq, and Iran, through Central Asia encompassing part of Kazakhstan, Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, and bordered Kashgar in China.

Today, he’s regarded as the national hero of Uzbekistan and his statue dominates Tashkent’s central square. It’s pretty much the only thing here save for a few fountains and as there’s little shade we didn’t stay for long.

Independence Square

The gates to Uzbekistan’s Independence Square

A couple of blocks away from Amir Timur is the country’s Independence Square, where fountains abound and giant square gates are adorned with silver pelicans said to bring good luck. The independence celebrated here is from the former USSR, Uzbekistan was one of the first countries to declare their independence when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.

Tashkent's Crying Mother statue in remembrance of the Uzbek soldiers that fought in World War II

Tashkent’s Crying Mother statue in remembrance of the Uzbek soldiers who fought in World War II

Facing us across the square is the giant statue of a Crying Mother who commemorates the 400,000 Uzbek soldiers who died fighting with the allies in World War II. Having such a imposingly powerful memorial here gave me a strange sense – perhaps it’s meant as a reminder that independence is hard won but worth fighting for.

Khast Imom Square

Khast Imom Square. From left (east) to right (west, through south): Hazroti Imom Friday Mosque; Moyie Mubarek Library Museum; Telyashayakh Mosque; Barak Khan Medressa

It won’t be much of a spoiler to tell you right now, that one of the three words we’ll be using to describe Uzbekistan in our Round Up we both said out loud when we first saw the Khast Imom Square.. “Wow.”

Julie and I in front of the Barak Khan Medressa

This is the official religious centre of Islam in Uzbekistan. To the east of the square is the Hazroti Imom Friday mosque, to the west is the Barak Khan Medressa which used to be a centre of learning until the student rooms filled up with souvenir stands.

According to our guidebook there is a third building called the Moyie Mubarek Library Museum that houses the Osman Qur’an (Uthman Qur’an), the oldest known copy of the Qur’an. I thought it might be the small, squat building in the square, but Julie thought it was the grand, wooden pillar-fronted one to the north. We poked our heads into the latter to find what looked like a doctor’s waiting room, and received a very puzzled look from the handful of people sitting inside. We translated the sign on the outside and deduced it was, in fact, a family planning clinic!

It took a bit more wandering before Julie decided that it might be worth a look in the small squat building in the square. The one with the short fence and the security box outside.

We paid 6,000som each (about £1.20) to the guard inside the building, and taking centre stage, is reportedly the oldest Qur’an in the world.

The Osman Qur’an (Uthman Qur’an), said to be the oldest in the world. A few pages are missing, and we overheard a guide say that there’s a page in the British Museum (photo source: Bruce Loeffler)

Its pages are about a foot square, made from deerskin and written in old Arabic script. Even with a few pages missing, it weighs about 40kg.

Our guidebook tells us a little of its history..

This enormous deerskin tomb was brought to Samarkand [in Uzbekistan] by Amir Timur, then taken to Moscow by the Russians in 1868 before being returned [to Tashkent] by Lenin in 1924 as an act of goodwill towards Turkestan’s Muslims. – Lonely Planet, Central Asia, p147

Peeping through the door into the Hazroti Imom Friday Mosque. We were allowed to enter the courtyard and look through the windows but we weren’t allowed into the mosque itself

The library has many more examples of the Qur’an, including a couple of tiny ones with pages smaller than postage stamps, and a display of translations into different languages.

Museums

Fine Arts Museum of Uzbekistan, not much to look at from the outside but definitely worth the visit

Like any capital city, Tashkent has a good number of museums though most get lukewarm write-ups and of the ones we decided to visit we found the quality was a little variable.

First up was the Fine Arts Museum of Uzbekistan which we really enjoyed. Each of the 4 floors are partitioned into small, easily digestible rooms and the whole place is chronological from the ground up, starting with 7th century Buddhist relics, through Uzbek crafts such as block printing and silk production, to Russian paintings and sculpture inspired by the European Renaissance.

The House of Photography, described as “edgy” by the Lonely Planet may have lost its edge

We love photography museums because we like taking photographs and they’re great for ideas and inspiration. Not so much Tashkent’s House of Photography which, while very cheap, had one display of aerial shots of Uzbekistan akin to those you might find in a tourism brochure, and the other two were probably what I’d shoot if you gave me an expensive DSLR for a day – in focus, good detail, but standard subjects, composition and nothing memorable. Still, at only 10p to get in it was worth the punt, and there wasn’t an extra charge for taking photographs.

Mobbed by a class of school kids as we made our way into the History Museum of the People of Uzbekistan

Last on our short list was the History Museum of the People of Uzbekistan, which we were lucky to get into at all as it must be a prerequisite school-trip!

It’s essentially a history museum of Uzbekistan from ancient Turkestan to the present day and, while a little heavy going in places, and a little bereft of English captioning on recent events it was a good over-arching introduction to the people and dates that shaped the country.

Orthodox Assumption Cathedral

The Assumption Cathedral in Tashkent reminded us of the many Orthodox churches and cathedrals we visited in Russia

We loved visiting the massive Orthodox churches and cathedrals in Russia, especially the Church on Spilled Blood in St Petersberg and the golden domes of the The Church of All-Saints Resplendent on Russian Land in Yeketerinberg, which we were reminded of when we saw Tashkent’s Assumption Cathedral.

The golden domes are topped with very ornate crosses

With the balmy weather, Julie and Jo had forgotten their headscarves, but were able to borrow one so we could take a look around inside. We didn’t take any pictures as there were people worshipping, except for one at the entrance..

Julie and Jo in borrowed headscarves

Chengdu, China

Aidao Nunnery Lunch

The Aidao Nunnery, small and very tasty!

Having read that it was possible to eat with the nuns at the Aidao Nunnery, we headed there with time to spare before the 11:45 commencement. Not sure of where in the Nunnery it took place, or at exactly what time, we only knew for certain we were in the right place because of the amazing vegetarian smells coming from the kitchens around the back.

11:45 came and went, but just before 12:00 we saw a few people helping themselves to two bowls and a pair of chopsticks, so sheepishly we did the same and followed them into the large hall at the right of the complex.

Vegetarian lunch at the The Aidao Nunnery, Chengdu, China

A budget banquet in a bowl! Our vegetarian lunch consisted of umpteen different and delicious dishes and a bowl of rice

After a short prayer (and a little guidance from one of the friendly servers), out came the food – vat after mouth-watering vat was presented and scooped into our bowls until they were almost overflowing.

The food was delicious, plentiful, some of it was spicy, and there were 2nds, 3rds and even 4ths on offer! Best of all, it cost an embarrassingly low ¥5 – that’s just 50p!

Oil lamps in the Aidao Nunnery, Chendu, China

Beautiful bronze goblets being used as oil lamps

Afternoon tea in the People’s Park

The Shao Cheng Tea House in The People’s Park, Chengdu. Of the 5 tea houses in the park, we chose at random and just happened to pick the cheapest one!

Allow me to preface this with a warning about tea ceremonies in China. There are a number of stories where foreign tourists are approached in the street by 2 Chinese students who, with excellent English, make small talk and then invite them to take part in a traditional tea ceremony. The tourists do indeed receive tea, but are locked into the building until they pay over £100 or more per cup (and we’ve heard stories that run into thousands of pounds or dollars).

There must still be money to be made in this scam as we were approached twice while in Shanghai, the second time the invitation was to the Shanghai International Tea Festival (which does exist, but had finished some 2 months prior). The approach was the same: “would you take our photo please? Thank you, where are you from? etc..”

Locals playing Mahjong in one of the tea houses in The People’s Park

While tea ceremonies are for very special occasions, drinking tea is even more ingrained in the Chinese culture than the British. We have seen so many Chinese tourists wandering around with what look like water bottles full of tea leaves, and they routinely stop to top them up with hot water – indeed, the only drinking water flight-side that we saw in Beijing airport was from a boiler for just this purpose!

As if I need present more evidence, Chengdu’s People’s Park has 5 tea houses. We chose one at random, and were seated at a table next to a delightfully peaceful pond in an enclosed courtyard with only the sound of mahjong tiles and tea cups being placed on the large stone tables.

Waiting for Tea in the People's Park, Chengdu

Julie and I waiting for our tea to arrive

We each chose a different teas from the small, worn, laminated card which thankfully was in English, and soon our tea sachets arrived together with two small cups and a single, large thermos-like canister full of hot water for us to top up our tea with.

Julie's jasmine tea in The People's Park, Chengdu

Julie’s jasmine tea. The price per cup includes a seemingly unlimited supply of hot water, and we agreed the 3rd or 4th cup was just about the right strength

We spent a very enjoyably relaxing 3 hours in the tea house, at which point the tea was just about the right strength. Had we not been seated next to the fascinating Jeff from California who teaches English to Chinese teachers (and reminded me a lot of my Dad – hi Dad!), the hours would have dragged as there’s only so much mahjong you can watch everyone else playing when there isn’t anyone to explain how it works!

Leshan Buddha – the biggest Buddha in the world

The Leshan Buddha, the biggest statue of Buddha in the World (notice the people in the top-right of the photo for a sense of scale..)

The biggest Daibutsuden or Buddha house in the world is in Nara, Japan, and even if it stood at at its original size instead of the current ¾ it still wouldn’t accommodate the largest Buddha statue in the world – the 71-metre (233 ft) giant seated Buddha of Leshan.

A very easy day trip from Chengdu on public transport, we arrived expecting just the main event and found a park of caves, statues and pavilions on the mountaintop that the Buddha is carved into.

The Leshan Buddha, viewed from shin-level

The route starts level with the Buddha’s head, and narrowly twists back and forth as it descends to the small viewing platform at its feet. Niches along the way are carved with Buddhist motifs, and the changing perspective means the queue moves slowly because there’s always another photo to take!

Julie at the foot of the massive Leshan Buddha statue

The passageway out was longer than the descent down, and brought us out at the south gate and an unexpected highlight of the day – the Mahao Cave Tombs Museum..

The tunnel-like cave tombs of the Eastern Han dynasty nobles in the Mahao Cave Tombs Museum

The Mahao Cave Tombs museum is quite small having only 2 rooms of artefacts, but the main attractions are the wonderfully lit cave tombs themselves. These tomb caves date from the Eastern Han dynasty (AD 25-220) and were built to house the remains of local nobles.

Sichuan Opera

The curtain call of the Sichuan Opera in Chengdu

A few years before we set off on this trip, I’d seen a short film about face changing opera, where the performers would change their masks so quickly that it was unperceivable to the watching audience’s eye. Having forgotten the name, I had originally recalled this as being a Chinese art, but when we didn’t find it on our first trip to China, I thought it might have been Japanese. Both China and Japan have an opera style called Noh, and while this does involve mask changing, the changes are done between acts or scenes. Imagine my delight when we arrived in Chengdu to find a sort of cabaret performance that culminated with Bian Lian – the very mask changing performance I had hoped to find!

Bian Lian performers in the middle of their piece

The show we saw is clearly designed for tourists with Chinese and English introductions, a giant electronic subtitle board that almost kept pace with the action, and distinct set-piece acts very much like a mini caberet or variety performance.

The highlight for our hostel-organised group was undoubtedly the Bian Lian. Saved for last, 7 artists came on stage and wowed the theatre with their skill and speed. One, after the typical wave of the arm or slight head turn to trigger the change, almost dared us to see how fast he was by looking straight at the audience and simply giving a little skip – we didn’t blink and we still missed it. Audacious, unbelievable and spectacular.

Bian Lian performer with an extra 5 masks

As well as ‘normal’ Bian Lian mask changing performers, there was a puppet Bian Lian, and this performer with 6 synchronised masks!

¹ What’s the best Chinese dish? Peking Duck of course!

How To: 3 days in Zhangjiajie, China

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Here’s our guide on what to see and how to see it in the Zhangjiajie National Park.

If you don’t like reading or following long, detailed instructions, you can do what we did and simply book a room at Zhangjiajie Yijiaqin Hotel, and the owner Shi Wan Tang or his daughter will plan your days for you!

Overview

Zhangjiajie National Park, the highlight of our second tour of China

Pronounced “Djang-Jar-Jay”, the Zhangjiajie National Park is stunning, and well worth the effort to see should your plans take you even remotely close, or even if they don’t.. ;o)

The city has a small airport, but we arrived by overnight train from Wuhan via YiChang, and although it is a little out of the way there are lots of trains passing through so it’s well connected and easy enough to get to.

Day 1 – Tianmen Mountain

Map of Tianmen Mountain (source: Natural Arch and Bridge Society)

The easiest of the sights to visit is Tianmen Mountain. It’s south of the city and easily reached on the longest cable-car journey in the world from a station right in the centre of town (and one block away from the Zhangjiajie Yijiaqin Hotel!)

Tianmen mountain cable car, the longest in the world at almost 7.5km

Tickets cost ¥258 return (about £26/$42), and the journey takes about 30 minutes. Aim to get to the cablecar station around 07:15 (yes, AM) – the first car leaves at 8am, but if you turn up just after 8 then your queuing time will quadruple to 2 hours. At least.

Fearless Julie on the glass walkway

On the top, take an anti-clockwise route along the edge and you’ll arrive at the entrance to the Glass Walkway – a section of the path that juts out of the karst with a glass bottom so you can ~~shit your pants~~ see all the way to the forest below. There’s a small extra charge for the Glass Walkway of ¥5 return (about £0.5/$0.8)

There’s a selection of food stands at the north near Tianmenshan Temple, and south-east near the cablecar station. While the bottled water is cheaper in the city, it’s not much more expensive at the top. There are plenty of toilets too.

The “999” steps up to the natural Tianmen Cave (it’s not quite 999 steps, but it is pretty steep!)

After taking the cliff’s edge path all the way around, take the cablecar halfway back to the middle station, and after a short wait take the free bus to the foot of the Tianmen Cave. There are 3 restaurants here and it looks like there’ll be more opening soon on the same underground level as the toilets.

From where the bus drops you, climb the 999 steps to walk through the hole where Alain Robert, the “French Spiderman” had climbed to the top and back unaided in 40 minutes – see if you can find the bronze cast of him climbing up the wall!

From the cave, head back down the 999 steps, take the free bus back along the twisting valley roads and then the cablecar back to the city.

Day 2 – Huangshi Village

Huangshi Village Map (source: Zhangjiajie Tourism)

Another early start, again to beat the cablecar queues, but as it’s about an hour to the cablecar you need to be at the Zhangjiajie central bus station no later than 7am.

Pay on the bus, so after passing the x-ray bag scanner, walk straight through the bus station toward the buses, and once outside turn left then follow the fence as it turns right 90° then left 90° and it’s the second gate on your right, but you’ll be spotted by the helpful ladies at the desks and waved onto the right bus! (they’ll assume, correctly, that you’re heading for Zhangjiajie National Forest Park Entrance)

Boarding the bus from Zhangjiajie bus station to the National Park entrance

The bus costs ¥10 (£1/$1.60) and takes 45 minutes to reach the Zhangjiajie National Forest Park entrance, where you’ll need to buy either a 3-day or a 7-day pass from the ticket windows to the left of the path, which are ¥248 (£25/$41) or ¥298 (£30/$49) respectively. You get a nice plastic entry card which you can keep as a souvenir, and when you pass through the gates you need to touch it to the gate and offer a thumb or finger for the scanner.

Once inside the park, follow the path (and the crowds) and you’ll reach Oxygen Square in about 5 minutes. Take the road to the left and after about 100 metres there’s a bus stop on your left where you can take the free bus to Huangshi Village Cableway. The bus takes about 5 minutes, or if you want to walk to the top there’s a path from Oxygen Square which will take about 90 minutes.

If you took the bus, buy your ticket for the cablecar at the windows to the right of the stairs which is an extra ¥118 (£12/$19) return. We arrived here at 09:00 on the dot and the queue was about 30 people so we were on our way in about 10 minutes!

I think it’s better to get the backward-facing seats, because you can turn around and have unrestricted views of this spectacular journey, like this:

View from the cablecar up to Huangshi Village – it’s short, but it’s our favourite because of the dramatic scenery passing between the karsts

On the top, turn left and take the cliffside path clockwise around the top as the views will just keep getting better and better. It took us about 2 and a half hours to circumnavigate but we’re slow as we take a lot of photographs. There are some snack stalls (we can recommend the fried potatoes) and toilets on the top to the east of the cablecar station, and if you want to walk down there’s a route that’ll take about an hour that starts near the cablecar station.

Just one of the many stunning views from Huangshi Village

Note that there are monkeys on Huangshi and if you’re carrying a bag in your hand they will try to snatch it from you – quite aggressively too – because they’ve learned that people carry their food that way. We had our food in our rucksack and the monkeys weren’t interested at all.

Beware: monkeys will go through any bags you carry in your hand!

Back at Oxygen Square which has a few statues and a nice garden, we took the Golden Whip Stream walking path, which comes with the same warning about carrier bags and mischievous monkeys.

The trail was busy with bunches of tour groups that were mostly going in the same direction, and the trees and karsts provide welcome shelter from the sun. There are plenty of toilets along the 3 hour walk, and there are a couple of food stalls too.

The Golden Whip Stream walking trail can be busy at times. This is a rare narrow section of the trail

The trail ends at “Water Winding Four Gates” where you catch the free bus to the Wulinyuan entrance to the National Forest Park. As the trail ends the road opens up. Take the road to the right and look for the big buses and the bus station queue. Check with the driver that they’re going to Wulinyuan, and it’ll take about 30 minutes with 2 possible stops along the way. You’re at the right one when you see a massive pagoda.

The pagoda that greets you at the Wulinyuan Park entrance. You’ll be seeing this again tomorrow..

Leave the park to the right of the pagoda, and stay on the footpath to the right of the road. After 300-400 metres you’ll see a beat-up old bus or two waiting for you – you want bus number 1. It’ll cost ¥1 or ¥2 (£0.20 /$0.32) to go about 3 blocks to the Wulinyuan Bus Station (which you could walk to if you prefer), then take the bus back to Zhangjiajie (“Djang-Jar-Jay”) which takes 45 minutes and costs ¥12 (£1.20 / $2).

Day 3 – Tianzi Mountain, Tianqiao, and Heaven Pillar (Hallelujah Mountain)

Map of day 3: Tianzi Mountain (circled top right), Tianqiao and the Heaven Pillar (Hallelujah Mountain, circled middle-left)

Day 3 starts by retracing our last steps from the end of day 2. It’s another early start – maybe even earlier as our destination is the biggest and busiest of the karsts in the park.

Quick recap: Get to the Zhangjiajie central bus station no later than 7am, preferably earlier if you really dislike queuing. Again you pay on the bus, so after passing the x-ray bag scanner, walk straight through the bus station toward the buses, once outside turn left then follow the fence as it turns right 90° then left 90° and it’s the second gate on your right, but you’ll be spotted by the helpful ladies at the desks but make sure to tell them you want Wulinyuan or they’ll point you at the wrong bus!

The minibus to Wulinyuan is about 45 minutes and costs ¥12 (£1.20 / $2). You’ll likely be dropped just outside Wulinyuan Bus Station, and there’s no need to go into the station itself as the No. 1 bus will pick you up from the same spot and take you pretty much to the Park Entrance.

The massive Wulinyuan park entrance pagoda

Head straight to the massive pagoda, the turnstiles are inside to the right, and the free park buses leave just beyond the gates once you’re in the park.

Get on the free park bus, but check with the driver that they’re stopping at “Tianzi” as they might point you at a different one. It should take about 15 minutes to reach the Tianzi Mountain Cableway. We got here about 08:45 and the long queue that had already formed took 90 minutes to reach the front! Get here as early as you can, but be prepared to camp out as the cablecar starts running at 09:00. It costs ¥67 (£7/$11) one-way.

Tianzi Mountain cablecar queue and journey

Tianzi Mountain – the queue you’re trying to avoid by getting there earlier than we did, and the fantastic cablecar journey you’re queueing for

At the top there’s a free shuttle bus that takes 5 minutes to go from the Upper Cablecar station to the Helong Park stop, where you’ll find a big map of the area at the top of the steps to Helong Park. The steps take you to a row of souvenir shops and of all things, a McDonalds. Yep, even here you can buy a McFlurry. Follow the path to the left which should be signposted Tianzi Pavilion.

Tianzi Pavilion is about an 8 minute walk, and this Helong Park area is a criss-cross of paths to little sights including the grave of Marshal He Long, a decorated General who now has an enviable view from his final resting place.

There is a path down from here along Wolong Ridge that includes a ride on the park’s short train, which drops you about half-way between Water Winding Four Gates and the Wulinyuan entrance gate. We didn’t take route so I don’t have any more details.

Once you’ve seen all the sights at the end of all the little winding dead-end paths in Helong Park, retrace your steps north back to the road and follow it west where you’ll find a row of stalls mostly selling food. Just beyond you can pick up the bus again and take it all the way to Tianqiao. Again, check with the driver that the bus is going to Tianqiao, and the journey should take about 30 minutes.

You’ll find Tianqiao stop to be a busy, manic mess of people and food and souvenir vendors. We didn’t see any signposts, so we just took the most obvious looking alley between the souvenir stands to the right of the bus park. The trail takes a long, winding route over and then past “Greatest Natural Bridge” and a few more named viewing spots before you reach the most famous sight of the park – Heaven Pillar – otherwise known as Hallelujah Mountain from the 2009 film Avatar.

The now famous Heaven Pillar, otherwise known as Hallelujah Mountain in the movie Avatar

Once you’ve taken plenty of photographs, including a few of you on the back of a Mountain Banshee, continue on towards “Enchanting” where the path forks. Right will take you to the “Back Garden”, left will take you to the Enchanting bus stop, where you can catch the free, 8 minute bus to the top of the Bailong Elevator – a giant outdoor lift with amazing views of the valley as you descend into it. Don’t forget to buy your ticket from the ticket office where the bus drops you off, as it’s a 5 minute walk to the elevator itself! Tickets are ¥72 (£7 / $12).

The thrilling Bailong Elevator which has a tunnel exit almost as long as the ride up the mountain!

At the bottom, you’ll find a bus stop right outside the exit that will take you all the way back to the Wulinyuan entrance, which takes about 45 minutes. From there it’s the same trip back to Zhangjiajie as yesterday.. leave the park to the right of the pagoda, and stay on the footpath to the right of the road. After 300-400 metres you’ll see a beat-up old bus or two waiting for you – you want bus number 1. It’ll cost ¥1 or ¥2 (£0.20 /$0.32) to go a couple of blocks to the Wulinyuan Bus Station (which you could walk to if you prefer), then take the bus back Zhangjiajie (“Djang-Jar-Jay”) which takes 45 minutes and costs ¥12 (£1.20 / $2).

Nanjing, China

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Nanjinglele - the official mascot of the 2014 Summer Youth Olympic Games, taking part in Nanjing during our visit

“Nanjinglele” – the official mascot of the 2014 Summer Youth Olympic Games which Nanjing was hosting during our visit

Nanjing first became the capital of China in 229 CE, indeed the ‘jing‘ (京) of Nanjing (南京) literally means “capital of a country” and ‘nan‘ (南) means “south” so if I tell you “bei” (北) means “north” you now know China has two capitals – in name at least!

For nearly 2000 years the capital moved back and forth between north and south, but it was Nanjing that witnessed the end of Chinese imperial rule and the troubled start of the current republican era with the birth of the Republic of China in January 1912, and then the People’s Republic of China in 1949, when the capital finally settled in Beijing.

Nanjing is a city rich in history, and the whole place is like a giant museum. Here begins the tour of the sights we visited, which I make no apologies for sounding like a chapter of a Chinese History textbook. It’s required reading people, and there will be a test at the end..

Purple Mountain, and Dr Sun Yat-sen’s Mausoleum

Nanjing’s Purple Mountain, a mass of hiking trails, entertainment and the tombs of both the Ming dynasty emperor and the first president and founding father of the Republic of China

The Purple Mountain, so called because its peaks are often enveloped in golden-purple clouds at dawn and dusk, sits to the east of the city and is a popular destination for locals and tourists alike.

Map of the main Purple Mountain hiking trails at the bottom. None of the named points on this map corresponded with the signposts further up the trail we followed. None

We found the Purple Mountain easy to get to but difficult to navigate once we got there. With the exception of the mausoleums and parks to the south, the signage on the mountain trails are only in Chinese. I hadn’t found a good map before we went, and I regretted not having made some translation notes when we tried asking for directions at one of the many intersections. My best charades for “mountain top” elicited only blank looks and a vague pointing in the direction we’d just ascended, so we decided to call an early end to our hike and head to Dr Sun Yat-sen’s Mausoleum.

Stairway to Dr Sun Yat-sen's Mausoleum, Nanjing, China

View up the stairway to Dr Sun Yat-sen’s Mausoleum. Considered the founding father of modern China, he’s a very popular guy

Designed and completed within 4 years of his death in 1925, his mountainside mausoleum is magnificent. It reminded us of the imperial tombs of Hue in Vietnam, but while those were for emperors, Dr Sun Yat-sen was a revolutionary, a key figure in overthrowing the last emperor of the imperialist Qing dynasty, and was appointed the first Provisional President of the Republic of China in 1912.

The Italian marble statue of Dr Sun Yat-sen sits in the Sacrificial Hall at the top of the mountainside stairway. His sarcophagus lies in a hall behind the statue

It was well worth the climb to the hall at the top, and we were a little disappointed that we weren’t able to see his sarcophagus which rests in a bell-shaped room behind his statue.

Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall

Entrance to the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall. A gloomy day foreshadowed our lesson in the worst of human behaviour

The period in Chinese history between the founding of the Republic of China (1912) and the People’s Republic of China (1949) was a very dark time for China as the Japanese Army, which had been poking at China with “incidents” here and there since the end of the first Sino-Japanese War of 1894–95, disobeyed its own government and started the Second Sino-Japanese war of 1937-45. Japan quickly escalated and broadened the conflict by attacking the USA, bringing it and its allies from World War II to the Pacific War, which ended with the utter devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Once the Japanese imperial government got behind and reinforced the early successes of its bloodthirsty runaway army, they took Shanghai and then quickly took the capital Nanjing. What the conquering Japanese did in Nanjing explains a lot of the ill-feeling that still exists in China toward Japan to this day, and the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall details what history recalls as the “Rape of Nanjing.”

One of the many graphic, large exhibition halls inside the museum

We found it to be a very well thought out museum. The exhibits are varied, the English captions and explanations are excellent and for the most part it’s neutrally factual in its description of the atrocities. It is, however, harrowingly unflinching. The photos of the killing fields and beheaded Chinese were difficult to see, especially one of a young boy caught with a monetary note in his pocket, tied to a lamppost and photographed just before he was executed.

Equally harrowing were the recently recorded first-hand accounts from the Japanese soldiers themselves talking about their actions during the war – one said of the gang-rape that every soldier took part, and those that denied it were liars.

Memorials to the victims, and the Peace Statue

The Chinese government estimates that approximately 300,000 civilians and unarmed Chinese soldiers were brutally slaughtered in the six weeks following the city’s capture.

Presidential Palace

Main gate of the Presidential Palace in Nanjing

The Presidential Palace site has been the seat of the southern Chinese power since the first emperor of the Ming dynasty (1368–1644). While the buildings have been destroyed and rebuilt in the style of the times over the years, it was here that the birth of the Republic of China took place and Dr Sun Yat-sen was elected Provisional President, albeit for a few short months before he resigned and power was transferred to Beijing. In 1927, nearly 15 years later, Nanjing and the Palace once again became the capital, this time of the People’s Republic of China led by Premier Chiang Kai-shek, until they fled the Second Sino-Japanese War when the Japanese invaded and took the city in 1937.

Portrait of Dr Sun Yat-sen hanging in the first hall of the Presidential Palace

After the Japanese surrender at the end of World War II, and the subsequent Civil War in mainland China, the capital was finally wrested from Nanjing when Mao Zedong proclaimed the People’s Republic of China (PRC) from atop Tiananmen in Beijing.

Today, the Presidential Palace is a museum to this turbulent and important period of Chinese history, but while it has some interesting exhibits, such as the Kuomintang (KMT) Party flag and the encrusted skull of a tiger, it is sadly lacking in English translations and suggested walking routes. As one TripAdvisor reviewer put it, you’d better have done your homework before you visit!

The flag and uniform of the Kuomintang (KMT), the first party of the newly created Republic of China and currently the ruling party in Taiwan

The administration buildings make up the central strip of the grounds, and are flanked by lovely peaceful gardens to the west and more traditional Chinese buildings to the east – the latter also contains an underground bunker and both contain a pond complete with stone boat!

The lovely gardens of the Presidential Palace.

The Stone Boats of the Presidential Palace. The larger one on the left is in the west gardens

We enjoyed visiting the Presidential Palace, and while the significance of a lot of the items on show was lost on us because they only had Chinese captions, and most of the government offices looked similar with their rows upon rows of desks (with qwerty typewriters!), it was great to see where so much important history had taken place and we loved walking through the gardens.

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