What we didn't really was that it also had a massive Portuguese culture to it & in the first day we visited some absolutely gorgeous parks, historical buildings & the Cathedral all of which were stunning & you really could have been in the Med!
Danny & I are not gamblers at all, but we of course had to check the casinos including the Lisboa (which I think is the oldest). To be honest we only went to the Mandarin Oriental to sample their cocktails ;-) and excuse as we don't gamble. It was here where we got chatting to their executive chef who was such a lovely interesting guy…..we must have been talking with him for over an hour when we so kindly offered to let us try one of his signature afternoon teas - on the House! So there we were, at 4pm is the afternoon eating smoked Salmon sandwiches, Victoria sponge & drinking English Breakfast tea. It was ace!!!!! So all in all Macau turned out to be a real highlight of our trip, and an unexpected pleasure of all kinds.

The Portuguese influence

views from Mount Fortress

Mount Fortress

The ruins of St. Paul's Cathedral

Casino Lisboa

Afternoon Tea at the Mandarin Oriental. Get us!

meet the Chef

The actual 'town is not that special- the fact that the main street (West Street) is renowned for haggling kind of gives you an idea of what its like ;-0 However the surrounding countryside is just stunning.
There are huge lakes, lush greenery & everywhere around you can see the mountainous landscape. We took a bike trip which was a great way to see just how gorgeous a place it is. And of course we went & watched the Cormorant fishing at night……which isn't quite exactly how it happened on the HSBC ads but even so it was pretty spectacular :-)!

written by  mich_and_dan_moors on August 12, 2011 from Yangshou, China
from the travel blog: mich_and_dan_moors's Travel Blog
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From here we took a River cruise on the Li River, down to Yangshou..........and I think this was the highlight of Guilin for us. The River scenery was almost like a minature Yangze River cruise and for us was the perfect way to reach our next destination. Yangshuo.

The yummy rice pots

our fave market stall......eating with our fellow Stokie!

On the Li River

written by  mich_and_dan_moors on August 9, 2011 from Guilin, China
from the travel blog: mich_and_dan_moors's Travel Blog
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Black Dragon Pond park is a beautiful attraction, a lovely walk just outside of the old town main square with a number of temples and a lake with the gorgeous backdrop of Jade Dragon Snow Mountains. Definitely worth a visit

Tiger Leaping Gorge
This was a trek we were really looking forwards to as we'd heard great things about it. However not so great was the '3 hour' bus ride to Qiaotou which in reality because of the truly awful roads and many accidents we saw along the way took about 5 hours.
So after we arrived at 1.30 we set about finding the beginning of the trek. Along the way we met 2 other couples & we all basically got lost. After about 40 minutes of going completely the wrong way & not being able to find the signposts, we set about going the right way. And then it pi***d down with rain!
So we were already almost 2 hours late on starting the trek, but thankfully the weather brightened up and further on we met another 3 guys that were on their way up so we all headed on together.
The killer punch of the day was the '24 bends' which is an extremely steep hike, apparently 600 metres, so after successfully making it that far we finally rest at the 'TeaHorse Guest House' at around 6pm.

The next day was beautifully clear & allowed us to truly appreciate the scenery. It was breathtaking.
It stayed clear for us all day so the 9 of all hiked together across waterfalls, high above the Yangtze River, all in all about 5 hours that day and we enjoyed every minute of it.

written by  mich_and_dan_moors on August 3, 2011 from Lijiang, China
from the travel blog: mich_and_dan_moors's Travel Blog
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Aside from eating & drinking we did a little trek one day & decided to walk almost 2hours up the Mountain instead of taking a 20 minute cable car ride. The scenery was fab, however the rain was very persistent that day & when we finally reached the top we had to take cover. It absolutely chucked it down!!
There was no way we could make it down by walking, it would have been just too slippy & steep so we succommed & took the cable car. Coincidently it was here that we met an Australian couple that actually had family in the same town as where my Mum lives, and they had even visited 'Mow Cop' which is where we live.
It truly is a small world!!

written by  mich_and_dan_moors on August 1, 2011 from Dali, China
from the travel blog: mich_and_dan_moors's Travel Blog
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Within the city, amongst the fast food restaurants & chain stores is the Bird & Flower market which is really worth a visit- you can buy pretty much anything you want to here although I think it's a lot more tame than it used to be. But you can definitely pick us something far more interesting than in the high street shops.

poor little chicks!

We were also very close to Green Lake park which was where all the locals would go to sing Karaoke, do their Tai Chi, or just generally dance around and have fun. But the best thing was that the majority of the locals were over 60. At least. They'd be singing & dancing around, having great fun & it was so lovely to watch. Not to mention very entertaining. To say there were a few 'characters' hanging around would be an understatement ;-)

Water Lillies at Green Lake Park

This guy was crazy!! One of the many sights we saw at the park ;-)

Beside the Pandas, another trip on our agenda was to visit the 80 foot Giant Buddha at Leshan. Unfortunately for us we visited on a Saturday, during the public holidays, on a red hot scorching 34 degree day, so to say it was packed out was an understatement. We had to wait in a 3 hour queue just to get to the beginning of the queue to even see the Buddah!
So we waited. And waited. And we were about 3 hours into queuing when I had a bit of a funny do, almost fainted and had to be carried out of the queue to sit down.
So after all of that I didn't even get to see the bloody Buddah!! Thankfully Danny did. And the pictures look pretty good so it was kind of worth it.

The Buddha is VERY big :-)

We explored Chengdu on the bus mainly, it was so easy to get around and in the evening we would go the the night market which was just so pretty, full of lots of little stalls & really good places to eat & drink. BBQ skewers & noodles were pretty much our Chengdu diet. Perfect!

The fabulous night market

Across the whole of China I have to say that the local people are so friendly and everyone we met were very genuine & lovely helpful people. They seemed to like practising their English (which was great for us as we could only manage a few Chinese words) and often would go out of their way & take the time to help us.

So back to the boat! We made it in the end & boarded at about 5pm. Neither of us know what to expect really as we had never been on a cruise before, but it turned out to be really great. We saw our itinerary for the next 5 days and we were actually really looking forward to being told what to do, taken to places, being fed & generally not having to think for ourselves :-)

Each day we'd be woken in our 1970's style cabin by an early morning walk-up call. 7am!!! After our big daily breakfast we'd then go off to our trip for the day, of which there were 3;

1. The Yangze Dam - an amazing structure which was built to manage the water levels & prevent future flooding, but unfortunately in order to build it they had to flood an entire villages & re-home all of the locals.

Three Gorges Dam

2. Hanging Coffins- we took a Paddle boat trip along the yellow river which was just breathtaking scenery, very green & lush but I also thought it felt a bit spooky! Probably because I was most excited about seeing the hanging coffins…………..which are nestled about 100 feet above in the rocks, literally perched on the edge. Nobody knows why or how they got there (or if they do they don't say in order to add to the mystery of it all!) but either way I really loved the trip.

The spooky hanging coffins!

At one point, in the really low water levels, our paddle boat was pulled along by about 7 men who waded through the water in their bare feet. To say they were strong was an understatement!

3. Ghost City - A temple that was set high upon the hill overlooking the Yellow River. It was named after the 2 people who built it, but some confusion about their names getting mixed up when translated into English meant 'Ghost' hence the name. It definitely wasn't as spooky or mystical as the hanging coffins but was still a great day out.

Ghost City

All in all we really enjoyed our cruise & would definitely recommended anyone to do it. We met some lovely people, ate more than our fair share of gorgeous food & saw some breathtaking scenery.

Meet the Captain!

written by  mich_and_dan_moors on July 18, 2011 from Yichang, China
from the travel blog: mich_and_dan_moors's Travel Blog
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The city of Xian itself is fab. One of our favourite spots was the Muslim Quarter - it was a bustling area of markets & local people across lots of little streets, but again we mostly loved it for the gorgeous food you could buy! It was a foodie haven……….we ate delicious flat style breads stuffed to the brim with either a meat or veggie filling & deep fried. Wrong, but just so right! Oh and there was a great cake/pastry stall that sold the best peanut brittle which we ashamedly bought about 5 bags of in just 2 days.

Muslim Quarter food. Delicious!

Situated just outside of the Muslim Quarter were the Bell & Drum Towers. We managed to see a Drum show one day which was great, and from the top of each of the towers you could see great views across the city.

written by  mich_and_dan_moors on July 13, 2011 from Xian'e, China
from the travel blog: mich_and_dan_moors's Travel Blog
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The streets of Pingyao

There were lots of little streets & alleyways that were lovely to wander through. Most of them were lined with 'tat shops' (selling tourist crap) but again we discovered a hidden gem of a food stall that was literally a few plastic chairs on the street with a guy & his wok. In Pingyao one of their local dishes is 'cat ear noodles' which are shaped just a the name implies & actually tasted a bit pasta like. They stir-fried it with lots of fresh tomatoes, veggies & chilli & it was so delicious we ate this dish for 3 days on the trot, sometimes twice a day. And the bonus was it cost us about 2 quid for two massive bowls & a couple of beers!

Our fave chef in Pingyao

So we ate. walked, and ate some more, as outside of the city walls they was not much to see.
We also met a fab couple from Manchester called Danielle & Richard (who weirdly are family friends with one of our good friends who live in Nottingham. It's a small world as they say!) so we had a couple of beers with them too. Well it would have been rude not to ;-)

written by  mich_and_dan_moors on July 10, 2011 from Pingyao, China
from the travel blog: mich_and_dan_moors's Travel Blog
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