China - 2017

During late October into November we travelled for 4 weeks through mainland China and 3 of their autonomous regions they being Tibet, Hong Kong and Macau, being educated about China’s history and observing the momentum of this juggernaut. 

Starting in China’s capital and using internal flights, high speed trains, boats or cars we visited these cities/locations in this order:

Beijing -> Datong -> Pingyao -> Xian -> Lhasa (Tibet) -> Chengdu -> Chongqing -> Yangtze River -> Yichang -> Shanghai -> Tongil -> Suzhou -> Hangzhou -> Guilin -> Hong Kong and Macau.

The map below shows each of these locations within China and the colour coding legend shows our prime mode of intercity travel.

     Legend:   _____ Car   _____ Plane   _____ Train   _____ Boat                                                   

In each city, except Hong Kong and Macau, we were met by a local guide who took us on tours to specific sights and provided the details for each.

Will cover some highlights for each location later in this post along with photos naturally, but after spending a fair bit of time in within China, would like to start with some of our broader observations about it.

General Impressions Of China

What follows is not at times meant to be a little negative… that’s not the intention because any descriptions are simply what we observed, and to be clear we did enjoy our trip to China but have no real need to return.

Shopping Mall in downtown Beijing

Make no mistake, China remains a textbook communist country but to be honest, it’s a little hard to tell because the Government has instigated some highly visible elements of capitalism.  

We never felt we were being controlled or watched through our entire visit.

Their cities look just like ours with businesses everywhere and all the usual brands on show, including KFC and MacDonalds.

The biggest example of the Government’s control is their blocking of any use of Google, Gmail, Facebook, WhatsApp, YouTube or Twitter, but this changed when we reached Hong Kong. 

People in China happily use Baidu as their Google equivalent (includes maps etc) and WeChat instead of Google, WhatsApp or Facebook and the widespread use of technology is very impressive.

Plan & Vision

There was a palpable and constant sense China is working to achieve its big vision and long term plan because you can see it physically everywhere with the unbelievable volume of construction going on, hear it from the guides and see it on the State run English TV channels. 

There was also constant reference to China’s ‘Belt & Road’ trade initiative and its very clear China has its fingers into lots of other countries.

We constantly read/saw the reporting of their involvement in Africa, Laos, Vietnam and this list goes on and on, building roads, railways and other infrastructure within each country.

China to us is clearly taking a world leadership and influencing position.

 The analogy I would like to paint for you is of a China octopus with its head over its own country, its tentacles able to reach anywhere in the world and with specific ‘involvement suckers’ firmly planted onto many countries.

Remember… its only been in the last 20+ years that the migration of its people into huge cities and large banks of apartments construction, and its massive road and high speed train networks have been built.  We were also impressed by the quality of their internal airlines.

China has massive momentum as it continues to grow and get stronger and we believe their people know it.

The People

Its an obvious comment but there is a LOT of people in China and if in this post you happen to see a photo without people in it, its just a fluke because we were always amongst people, lots and lots of people.

They are very industrious, usually good humoured and polite, until you’re in a queue, a loose description, where once its time to move, you get pushed, elbowed and charged past or people simply cut in if you aren’t careful.  They are very impatient and with very little sense of personal space.

It’s the only way they think things will get done and if you stick with manners, you will be left behind, so fairly quickly, we learned to ‘compete’ the way they do.  There is a stark difference however when comparing walking around in highly populated busy locations in both China and Japan, the latter being very polite.

In some of the smaller cities we visited, the locals would simply also walk up very close to us and just stare at us, especially at Rob with her blond hair, but we eventually got used to that also.

Driving in China

Now if you want to do something really exciting, try driving, because we have seen nothing quite like it, even in Italy!  The use of traffic lanes seems fairly arbitrary and people will stop in very odd places to do what they had in their mind at the time… even on freeways.  They drive how they behave in queues; they are always in a competition.

When they turn left, our equivalent of a right hand turn, they just turn across in front of oncoming traffic and a bluff negotiation commences.  Changing lanes or merging into traffic is another constant bluff negotiation accompanied by horn blowing.

We did learn from our guides there are no formal road rules for pushbikes or motorcycles, so we had to be very careful when trying to cross roads because traffic lights or pedestrian crossings meant nothing, they would charge through anyway. 

It was even harder with electric scooters because we couldn’t hear them coming, especially at night when most don’t have headlights on, probably to save batteries. 

The number of times we saw motorbikes driving in the opposite direction to car traffic lane splitting on multi lane roads, constantly exciting indeed.

We did discover after returning, using Google that 260,000 people die on China’s roads each year and 60% of those aren’t car or truck drivers!

Air Pollution

Probably like you, before departing for China, we had heard about China’s smog and it was a real concern to us, but we arrived into clear skies in Beijing and thought, this will be fine.

View out of our hotel window - Beijing

It didn’t last very long and for the bulk of our trip we had to contend with various levels of air pollution and at times, we did have breathing difficulties or ongoing sinus issues.

There were other cities where we enjoyed reasonably clear skies, which provided some short-lived respite, but we were visiting in autumn and we were constantly told that the air pollution was worse as the weather cooled.

We saw plenty of evidence of and heard about the work the Government are doing to reduce air pollution (wind farms, solar panel farms, huge hydro generators). Mind you, all our guides referred to what we called smog as fog or mist!

From a photographic point of view, the same air pollution was a challenge because it diminished the impact of China’s many spectacular sights because there are a lot of fabulous things to see.

There is some 'de-hazing software' I have had to use to try and reduce the impact of the smog on many photos… just so you are aware but will leave some the way they were taken so that you get a feel for it.

Marriage in China

A couple preparing for their wedding day

May seem an odd thing to focus on but we learnt it’s a good thing for parents to have girls when it comes to marriage because the parents of boys are expected to pay the 30% deposit for an apartment when a couple get married.

The parents of the couple then put a stack of pressure on them to have children and China has now moved away from the one child policy to a ‘two delivery’ policy, which means if a couple say have twins or triplets on their first delivery, they can go again if the wish.

Most of our guides were married with a single child and that’s all they were planning on having.  It is also illegal to find out the sex of your baby before birth.

The parents of each of our married guides with a child were expected to look after the grandchildren whilst the parents work and there is a ~20% divorce rate in China.  

Girls who are in their early 30’s and unmarried apparently find it very hard to find a partner, even though there are more boys than girls generally.

Security

We were very surprised by the amount of and intensity of security checking throughout China, not just for westerners but also the locals.

Our ‘in hold’ bags were scanned when entering any airport or railway station, backpacks were scanned entering most of the sights.  At every airport we had to take out computers, cameras, spare batteries and sometimes the lenses for scanning. 

After walking through the airports’ body scanner, everyone was thoroughly patted down anyway and at times including checking the soles of our feet.

The Guides

We were very lucky to have very friendly, highly competent and good English speaking guides in each location.  They were very keen to proudly show off their country. 

We were a little bemused however at how little they wanted to know about Australia and we simply took it as a sign that the Chinese don’t see much reason to know much about other countries because they have all of what they want in their own.

Technology Use

Like most countries in the world, the Chinese are very heavy users of smartphones BUT what was a surprise was how much they use their phones to buy things, in fact, most things.  They scan barcodes and the retailer is paid immediately and when Rob tried to buy something in a store using a credit card she couldn’t.  Had to use either Alipay or pay with cash.

Dynasties

All our guides did not talk about historical events or things using dates or a particular century, they talked in terms of which dynasty things happened in.  So what is a dynasty?  We were told it is when a particular King brought the people and Regions of China together, becoming an Emperor and starting a dynasty.  The dynasty might only last for that Emperor or may span multiple hundreds of years with multiple Emperors from within the same family.  50% of the Emperors however die via assassination.

Food

Very simply, Chinese food in China is much more varied and different to what we have available in Australia and we really enjoyed it.  There were a few amusing surprises when ordering using pictures and some of the spicy selections were a LOT hotter than expected. In the northern areas of China there is more use of noodles and in the south they prefer rice.  All our meals were fresh and delicious.

One of our amusing selections where all the red bits are dried
chilli skins and the rest are small bits of chicken and peanuts

Places We Visited Highlights

For each of the cities we visited, will focus only on the main highlights but it is fair to say there were many interesting and enjoyable experiences.

Beijing

Beijing is China’s capital and their 19^th National Congress of the Communist Party congress was underway when we arrived.  It is a city of ~21.7M people and quite modern.

We took ourselves via the excellent metro to Lama Temple where there is a 18m high Buddha plus its 8m underground foundation, ALL carved from a single huge white sandalwood tree.  It was a gift from the seventh Dalai Lama to the Quianlong Emperor and took three years to transport it from Tibet to Beijing.

18 mtrs high and made out of a single tree! 

After an early morning 90 min drive to the Great Wall of China at Mutianyu to avoid big crowds, we were in awe of this amazing structure snaking across mountains with 3 watchtowers on distant peak tops.  It was surprisingly steep in sections and wide.

The truly staggering Great Wall of China

Just proving we actually were walking The Great Wall

The Temple of Heaven, built in 1420 is massive and covers 2.7 million sq mtrs or 4x times the size of the Forbidden City and was built for the Emperor to pray in.  It was quite beautiful with a large round temple located in the middle.

Crowds admiring the Temple of Heaven

You can’t go to Beijing and not visit the Forbidden City palace complex, also built in 1420 with 980 buildings, 8,886 rooms and covering 180 acres.  Commoners were not allowed to enter and there are no trees in it due to assassination fears.

More crowds reach the centre of the Forbidden City

The very serene Summer Palace was beautiful and home to the longest open corridor in the world (at 700+ metres) with hand painted watercolours along its entire length.  It was reputed the Empress only used her silk towels once when bathing before they were thrown away.  It was also the home to a very large floating marble boat.

Built in 1755 and known as the Boat of Purity & Ease

The Olympic precinct is huge and we walked around part of the swimming Cube and Birds Nest stadium.

Rob looking at The Birds Nest in the Beijing Olympic precinct

Datong

We flew into Datong early in the morning and actually had the rest of the day to ourselves to explore alone.  Datong, once the most polluted city in China because of coal mining/use was a very pleasant city, first settled about 200 BC.

Section of old town of Datong

It is small by China standards at a mere 4M and located close to the clay Great Wall Pass into Inner Mongolia.

We stayed in the middle of the old walled town that is being renovated, and spent much of our time without crowds walking through the massive Huayan Monastery before climbing the old wall at night and being rewarded by the ‘light show’ atop it.

'Light Show' each night on top of the city wall at Datong

Not far from Datong are the Yungang Grottoes or 20 ancient Buddhist temple grottoes that started being created from 471 AD and are UNESCO World Heritage listed.  Behind the grottos standing sentinel like is, part of the original clay and mud brick built Great Wall of China closest to the border with Inner Mongolia.

Just one of the Buddah carvings at Yungang Grottoes...

...and each of them is HUGE

In mountains about 1 hour from Datong we visited something called the Hanging Temple, totally unprepared for different weather – SNOW!  What a truly amazing structure, 75m above ground, built into/onto a cliff, over 1,500 yrs old and all started by one monk.   We climbed up to it then weaved our way throughout the very narrow steep ladders.  This was one of THE highlights of our trip.

The Hanging Temple - 1,500 yrs old, snow on the ground and amazing

It is not very wide as we climbed the narrow steps throughout the Hanging Temple

Pingyao

A few hours drive from Datong is the ancient city of Pingyao, again a walled city and where cars are not allowed inside its walls.  It is tiny by China standards at 50,000 people and full of narrow little roads and lanes filled with very old buildings, many dating back to 800BC.

Rooftop view of the ancient city of Pingyao

Our little hotel was delightful and a mere 289 yrs old and the wall around the city is 6km long, 12m high and built from 1370.

Entrance to our hotel Pingyao

Dining area in our 289 yr old hotel, Pingyao

The nearby Pagoda of Fogong is the oldest fully wooden pagoda in China built in 1056 (built without any nails).  During 2^nd Sino Japanese war, Japanese soldiers shot over 200 bullets into the pagoda causing it to lean but it has proved very hard to repair due to its traditional interlocking timber construction.

There are no nails in the Pagoda of Fogong but a few bullets

One of China’s first banks, the Rishengchang Draft Bank, was created to store silver ingots used as payment to the traders taking goods to soldiers stationed on the Great Wall.  Silver ingots are heavy to carry over long distances, so they were deposited in this Bank, the traders then given large coded cheques used to redeem their silver at another Bank.

The UNESCO listed Shuanglin Monastery is a mystery to the Chinese who have no idea who built it, except it was founded in 571 AD.  It’s different to others we saw because it’s still very original and we could see how each statue was built using a timber frame then clay/grass used to form each shape.

Very original statues inside the Shuanglin Monastery

Xi’an

After our first ‘queue race’ to the rail carriages of a high speed train for the trip from Pingyao to Xi’an, we endured a few stares as the only westerners in our carriage.  Xi’an has a population of 6.5M and its history goes back 6,500 yrs and is regarded as THE start of the ‘Silk Road’ trading route with the west.

We were here to visit the world famous 2,200 year old Terracotta Warriors and they are truly spectacular, every single statue is unique, very detailed and originally included their weapons. There were also 2 sets of amazingly detailed and scaled down teams of bronze horses and carriages.

The Terracotta Warriors still standing guard for their Emporer 

Each statue is unique but look at the detail in the hair for example

Scaled down bronze horses and carriage over 2,000 years old

We attended the Tang Dynasty Show at Shaanxi Grand Opera House, which was spell binding, telling part of the love story between Emperor Xuanzong and his concubine Yang Yuhuan.  The dumpling selection wasn’t too bad either.

The Chinese certainly know how to put on a great show

Our guide taught us about Chinese weddings after we spotted couples having their photos taken, as we walked atop a section of the 13.7 Km old wall.  3 dresses are typically used, all usually rented and they do their photos before the wedding so the photos can be hung up on the wedding day.

Wedding photos being taken before their wedding

Lhasa – Tibet

One of the big attractions for us was being able to visit Tibet, about a 3hr flight from Xi’an, the last hour or so across hundreds of snow capped mountains before following a long valley to the city.

View as we drove from airport to Lhasa

Lhasa stands at an altitude of around 3,650m which caused shortness of breath when we started climbing lots of steps.  Temperatures were also very different, falling to -6C to -9C each night and there were passport and entry permit checks to leave the airport then enter the city itself.

A local Tibetan enjoying life

The native Tibetans look physically different, speak a different language to Chinese and write very differently, but it’s run/owned as an autonomous State by China.

Tibetans are very devout Buddhists and have a history involving the reign of Kings and then multiple Dalai Lamas.  

They believe in reincarnation and still practice ‘air burials’ which means vultures devour the dead body laid out on burial platforms as a way of returning what humans have gained from the land & water.

The many Tibetans we met seemed very gentle and extremely good-humoured in their interactions.

We climbed up LOTS of steps to and through the iconic Potala Palace, built by the 5^th Dalai Lama 1,300 yrs ago and the youngest relic inside it is 500 yrs old.  It’s also the burial place for a few Dalai Lamas in massive gold Stupas created by locals after their death, the size and adornments of it determined by the reverence the people held for the Dalai Lama being buried within it.

The iconic 1,300 year old Potala Palace

With lots of and lots of steps throughout

The Tibetans are VERY relaxed about the quality of the paintwork

A Stupa (crypt) for one of the previous Dalai Lamas
which consists of precious stones & tonnes of gold

Jokhang Temple is one of the most revered in Tibet as we witnessed by the 1,000s of pilgrims from distant places in Tibet walking around it clockwise or prostrating themselves on the ground outside.

A pilgrim moving clockwise around Jokhang Temple regularly prostrating himself

There was a massive queue of pilgrims going into the temple, waiting to place their forehead on a 2,000 yr old image/statue of a princess, but we used a rapid queue bypassing the statue and I had an old small Tibetan lady with both her hands planted on my bum pushing hard to move me along.

The roof of Jokhang Temple

Masses of pilgrims place their foreheads at the base of the 2,000 yr old 'image' of a Princess (thanks to Google)

The Dalai Lamas’ summer palace is extremely peaceful and was once home for 2 years to the current but exiled Dalai Lama, whom its illegal for locals to have photographs of.

Summer Palace for the Dalai Lamas

Drepung Monastery... one of many large monasteries around Lhasa

Trying to get our flight out of Lhasa was chaotic with most flights being delayed, long waits for everyone, nowhere to sit as we had to wait in the check-in area, a lot of queue jumping happening and arguments before police being brought in.

We were very thankful for our guide being with us as our flight kept going backwards… waiting… waiting… waiting and then our guide almost nonchalantly says, “will be okay if me not here, they must look after you if no get on flight tonight as you must be left from Tibet today, permit finished!  Will show you counter”.

After a 3.5 hrs wait and to great relief… we boarded our flight.

Chengdu

Chengdu is one of the oldest settlements in southwest China going back over 2,300 years but is now a modern city of ~18M people.  We were here for one primary reason… Pandas!

Panda Base is the primary Panda research facility in China and the world.  It is truly a fantastic set up and we saw many Panda adults, sub-adults, pandas in trees, cute babies just starting to walk and the aggressive red pandas.

Feeding Panda

Snoozing Panda

Baby Panda

Hanging Panda

Red Panda

Then a surprise when we visited a museum to see many ancient remains of the Shu Civilization, who were very sophisticated almost 4,500 yrs ago and built a huge walled city.

4,500 year old Shu gold mask

The Chinese know very little about this civilization but their incredible pottery, winemaking history and bronze work, including very detailed artistic creations and work with gold was just stunning.  Remember… they were doing this around 4,500 years ago!

Ancient Shu bronze work

One of a few large bronze 'trees' the Shu
created in bronze... one almost 7 mtrs tall 

Chongqing

We took a bullet train from Chengdu to Chongqing, with a city centre of 12M and 33M if you include the surrounding areas, and with high air pollution levels to match.   Our guide took us quickly through Chongqing old town before going to the boat for a 3 day cruise down the Yangtze River.

View to a smog laden Chongquing

Rob mixing sticky rice in the old town

Yangtze River Cruise

The Yangtze River is ~6,300 kms long and we travelled downstream about 10% of its length on one of the numerous very large riverboats.

Our river cruise boat

We again witnessed Chinese queuing behaviour at its best every meal time with crowding well before the dining doors opened, a mad rush when they did, and then the race to heap as much food onto their plates as possible.

We made shore excursions at Feng Du or the Ghost City and the only location in China focussed on the underworld, then another excursion to Shibaozhai or Red Pagoda built in 1819 and now protected by a wall due to the rising water caused by the building of the 3 Gorges Dam.

Worshipper in Feng Du temple complex

Red Temple at Shibaozhai

There was a side excursion in smaller boats into a gorge tributary using local guides who taught us about their local culture and what its like living in the mountains. For example it takes the kids 2-3 hours one way to reach their school each day.

Small boat excursion to the Goddess Stream

The Yangtze River is famous for the massive project called The Three Gorges Dam and the actual gorges are really tall when you sail through them.  Either side of the river were large cities of over 1M people each that had to be rebuilt on higher ground and all the people relocated into them.

Riverboats entering the gorges

Eventually we reached the 5 huge locks we had to go through, lowering the boat a total of 110 mtrs to the river below the enormous dam wall, only part of which we could see due to the smog.  The dam is used to produce huge amounts of hydroelectric power or 10% of China’s energy needs.

3 Gorges Dam wall and small ship lift facility, well part of it

This dam and the water it now stores is so large that it has slowed the Earths rotation due to an effect called the ‘moment of inertia’ and NASA scientists calculated the shift of such a mass will increase the length of day by only 0.06 microseconds, and will also shift the pole position by about 2 cms (0.8 inch)

Shanghai

We only had 1 full day in Shanghai, a very modern and clean city of 24M people, and we were lucky to have clear skies with minimal air pollution.

We enjoyed our visit to the Shanghai Museum to see very old and historical examples of painting, clothing, calligraphy, pottery and of course, works in bronze.

This is about 5,200 years old!

Each small Buddah is inly a few cm's high

This bronze axe head is almost 6,000 years old, from Neolithic times

There is a very pleasant French Quarter in Shanghai and is also the location for the building where the Chinese Communist Party was formed. Finally we visited The Bund, a walkway and buildings along the waterfront of the Huangpu River.

Building the Chinese Communist Party was founded in

Using the metro, we went back to The Bund at night by ourselves to witness the famous night-lights of the financial district, discovering we were just 2 of tens of thousands of other people doing the same thing, and when trying to get back to the Metro, it felt like being a salmon trying to swim upstream against a tide of people.

View to the financial area of Shanghai from The Bund... 

...and the same view when the lights come on each night

Tongli

It’s nice to learn about things you have never heard of and in this case it happened when we reached a very old small town called Tongli, a few hours drive from Shanghai.

Part of the town of Tongil

Tongli lies near and receives its water from the Grand Canal, which happens to be the longest man made, 2,500 year old canal/river in the world, stretching 1,776kms from Beijing to Hangzhou.  Our guide was surprised we had never heard of it!

We enjoyed exploring some narrow laneways

Tongli is famous all over the world as a water town where its rivers, streets, bridges, homes, and gardens are integrated perfectly as one, earning it the name of "the Oriental Venice" due to its unique water town scenery.

A lovely little town to amble around and enjoy the ambience 

We visited our first Chinese garden called Tuisi Garden, very different to the gardens in Japan.  They have multiple pavilions built within the garden and used either for meeting with guests or meditation for example. 

Inside one of a few pavilions within the Tuisi Garden

There was water and plants but also rocks, the Chinese like their rocks, which must have holes through them the water can flow through but without pooling and being held by the rock. 

Water within the Tuisi Garden and another pavilion...

...and one of many decorative 'rocks' within the garden

Suzhou

Suzhou is a small city of a mere 4.3M located about 100kms north west of Shanghai and also benefits from the waters flowing along the Grand Canal.

The local sights included Tiger Hill, the burial place of King Helü in 496 BC and obtaining its name because as legend tells it, a white tiger appeared at his tomb just after his burial.  The tomb has never been opened.

We also visited 2 more different but equally beautiful gardens, the small intimate Net Garden and the very large but discrete Humble Administrators Garden.

Small section of The Humble Administrators Garden

Hangzhou

After another fast train journey, we arrived into Hangzhou and the largest railway station we have ever seen… massive.  This city has ~10M people and is the terminus for the Grand Canal.

After a cruise on the large but smog covered West Lake and visiting Lingyin Temple, one of the largest and wealthiest in China, housing 500 1 tonne bronze Buddhist statues.

Just some of the 500, 1 tonne and individually unique bronze Buddhist statues

The Feilai Feng grottoes, also known as ‘Flying Peak’, is where there are many Buddhist reliefs carved into rock including the very popular laughing Buddha. 

The Laughing Buddha at Flying Peak

Guilin

After a high-speed train back to Shanghai to catch the only flight available, we arrived into Guilin late, reaching our hotel at 1am, our guide asking us to meet her again at 8am to catch a boat.

The twin Pagodas visible from our hotel window very early in the morning

Guilin is one of China’s most popular destinations, (especially for the Chinese) for taking a day cruise down the Li River amongst hundreds of limestone karst's or peaks guarding its banks.  It’s a river version of Halong Bay in Vietnam.

Riverboats cruising the Li River amongst limestone karst's

These large flat bottom boats did a great job navigating the very low water levels at this time of year, as we enjoyed the constant and vast views from the decks.

Our visit to Reed Flute Cave unveiled the 'crystal palace' and reflections

Hong Kong

We’ve been to Hong Kong before, and this bustling large city with unique skyscrapers scattered everywhere, was a nice way to finish our time in China at our own pace.

Having bought a 2-day, hop on/off Big Bus pass, we used it to get around to see the highlights this city has to offer, plus a lot of walking in between.

Have included a map of our various routes around Hong Kong Island where we stayed, across to Kowloon and then finally to Macau.

Our travels within Hong Kong (red) and by fast ferry to Macau

We visited The Peak using the famous Peak Tram twice, once during the day and the other to watch the city lights come to life, along with 1,000s of others with the same goal.  The funicular Peak Tram is amazing considering it opened in 1888 and has to negotiate a maximum steepness of 48% and gradients ranging between 4-27 degrees.

View from the Peak during the day... the night view from the same
location is in the additional photo link at the endow this post

Night time view from Hong Kong harbour level

Cruising around Aberdeen and its floating restaurants

One of Hong Kong's original trams circa 1904

Our last full day was spent catching a high-speed ferry for the 1 hr trip from Hong Kong to the old Portuguese settlement of Macau, settled from the 1550s and it now exists under the ‘one country, two systems’ policy where China is responsible for military defence and foreign affairs whilst Macau maintains its own legal system, police, currency, customs and immigration.  Pretty simple really!

Macau is famous for its casinos... lots of casinos

So this meant we had to fill out immigration cards when we left Hong Kong and show passports and present the same when we left Macaua and on arrival back into Hong Kong.

Historical Portugese buildings 

The Portuguese influence could be seen everywhere whilst ambling along narrow shop lined laneways.

We do now have now another thing add to our travel planning checklist… Grand Prix’s!  

We happened to visit Macau on the final day of the Macau Grand Prix so to finish China off… there were yet again people clambering everywhere.

We were well and truly ready to head home to less people and fresh air, but were happy to have visited and experienced we suspect, only a little of what China has to offer.

To see some additional photos of our trip to China, click on the link below.

CLICK HERE for more photos China 2017