The Great Rivers of China

Flew to Chongqing ,at the junction of the Yangtze & Jialing rivers. This is where the Three Gorges Project will impact Really big boats will be able to come up here and a lot of industrial goods can be transferred by river in future, also enough hydro for large area of China. Chongquing is very mountainous hence no bikes. It also has very few trafic lights relying on pedestrian overpasses and traffic over & under passes which saves a lot of pollution.

This was the capital during the Japanese War, which had a fair bit of emphasis. It is a very foggy city making it hard to attack. After a city tour, including a very well used central park with karaoke happening at midday Saturday, we had the visit to the General Stillwell Museum, which was his headquarters during the War but Chiang Kai- Schek had him sacked as he was too close to Mao.

The next day a bus to Dazu where there are 800 year old buddhist carvings, really detailed, carved in sandstone at 2 different locations

On Sunday we arrived in Chengdu. This is the capital of Sichwuan, where the earthquake caused such devastation in April, not that there is any sign here. It is also the home of the very spicy cuisine so lots of chilli, but as we usually eat at the Restaurant Of Many White Faces, it has been toned down , but we do get some interesting dishes. Tonight one was just like an Indian curry served in a steamed bun and lots of noodles. Our English contingent don't like the food but the Aussies do. Fortunately we have 1 Korean from Canberra and 1 chinese guy from New Zealand who understand and read Chinese a bit so that gives us some good insights and our 29 year old guide is excellent-competent and thoughtful. Chengdu is a very prosperous and modern city. We had a day trip from here to see the enormous statue of Buddha at the junction of 2 rivers. it is huge

Then the pandas . The research staton is just on the edge of this city of 10 mil, and about 50 pandas, including these unbelievable babies all together in a baby's cot, except for one in a humidicrib. Mostly they were lying on their backs eating bamboo. They really are very cute & likable..
Meanwhile the world as we know it seems to be disintergrating out there. We have just watched the Obama McCain debate which has been going all morning here. We have the morning off to get ready for 12 hour train trip to Xian. We are just missing Jon Faine who leaves there today. Listen to hear what he says on the ABC this week, because he is seeing what we see.