Dali is one of those places that I really hoped I wouldn’t dislike. Its description in the guidebooks made it sound so pleasant a town—except for one thing—the growing number Chinese tourists. Well, there were tons of tourists, but Chinese tourists seem to stick together in group tours and don’t drift very far from the […]
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A Walk through Lijiang China It’s not easy to navigate the streets of Lijiang’s old town. Timeworn cobbled streets follow steams, bending over ancient stone bridges forming a centuries-old maze. Lijiang is the capital of the Naxi Kingdom, set beneath the spiky Jade Dragon Snow Mountain. The Naxi are an ethnic group descended from the
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Muang Ngoi is a small village on the banks of the Nam Ou River in Northern Laos. It’s a one-street village with no motorized vehicles—the only way to get there is by a one-hour boat ride from Nong Khiaw. It’s a peaceful place to spend a couple days. There’s only electricity from 6pm to
Photo of the Week: Muang Ngoi and surrounding Countryside, Laos Read More »
A stroll around the Confucian Academy of Jianshui is a serene experience. I visited the day before the Chinese New Year, and the streets of the city were erupting in a constant state of exploding fire crackers. But at the Confucian academy, inside the giant walls that surround this 7.5 hectare complex, a state of
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Photo of the Week: La Rochelle France La Rochelle, on the western coast of France, is a lively seaside town. The picturesque and well-preserved Vieux Port (Old Port) give the city a distinctly Mediterranean atmosphere. Most of the buildings are hundreds of years old and very well maintained. The narrow streets and pale stone buildings
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Commercialization has come to the rice terraces in Yunnan, China. There are now entrance charges to the platforms to view the terraces in places where they are most spectacular. One can imagine this will ultimately lead to the Chinese government paying farmers to simply manicure these rice paddies instead of farming them as they have
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Greenwich, although today seemingly part of London, was once separate from the city, even a popular resort in the 17th century. It’s famous for its notable contributions to maritime history and for giving its name to the Greenwich Meridian (0° longitude) and Greenwich Mean Time. Greenwich became the site of a royal palace, the Palace
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One of the most popular ways to soak up the scenery of Guangxi Province is to take a bamboo raft down the Li River. Yangdi is the preferred starting place and the new fee structure starting January 1st, 2012 requires a 118 RMB (US $19) fee which includes a spot on a four-seat bamboo raft.
Photo of the Week: Rafting on the Li River near Yangshuo Read More »
A few years back I had a week’s layover in the UK and bee lined it directly to Wales. It was the only country of the United Kingdom that I hadn’t already visited. After a couple days in Swansea I boarded the famous Heart of Wales Rail Line. After about three hours I had arrived
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To many people, Macau means one thing: casinos. This little special administrative region of China that was both the first and last European colony in Asia, makes more money from gambling than Las Vegas. It’s a hot destination for rich mainland Chinese. To me it was about visiting an anomaly: a territory with a curious
Photo of the Week: Different Sides of Macau Read More »
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