Hey Hey and a Big G'Day to you
Up much too early.

What is it with the northern/western of China. Why do all buses leave before 8am and why is there only one bus per day. Maybe that is the reason for all the people walking in the middle of nowhere! The bus took ages to leave the town as the bus driver wanted to fill all seats prior to leaving. It took time but luckily for us the seats were filled and we were on our way.

The road to Kangding was pretty bloody rough but the world outside the bus window was beautiful. Huge rolling green mountains and small rivers were plentiful. Huge open grasslands rolled on by as the land continued its change.

LUNCH: lunch wasn't too bad actually. I have no idea where we were but it was a popular little eatery on the road side. Surprisingly the dish wasn't too hot or spicy and we even forgot to say BOO LARJIO! (no chilli). Only problem, even before leaving the table the eatery girl began cleaning the table. She actually began sweeping the bones from the table into a tissue and most of them ended in my lap. Without even a hint of a 'sorry' in her eyes she was off to the next table.

ACCOMMODATION: We arrived around 3:30pm or so. We caught a cab to the Jinlu Binguan (hotel/guesthouse). This place is in a great location just up from the Love Song Hotel (much too expensive!) The Love Song Hotel is behind the little square with the Prayer Wheels in it. Walk towards the big hotel and turn right. It's in a little narrow busy back street. Like the LP says, you do have to find the little English sign and walk up the drive way and walk to the right to find the hotels doorway. We paid our normal 80 Yuan for a clean room with a bathroom. Like most it had towels and toilet paper supplied.

After a shower we headed out into the town.

LAUNDRY: First we dropped off our laundry. We found about three places but the easiest and closest is down from the Love Song Hotel in the same little side street. You'll come to a road block where old women sell fruit and old men cut keys and fix shoes. It's on the left.

I loved the town pretty much straight away. It reminded me a lot of Guangxi's Linyun (three hours west from Baise). Like Linyun, Kangding had canals full of rushing water racing through. These are the Zheduo & Yala rivers. The big difference, Linyun has small canals with very slow water. We stopped on a bridge to talk to some girls from England for a time. As we chatted in the town square across from us many of the towns people were gathered in a huge circle performing the local traditional dances just like in Zhongdian and other towns I've visited around China.

The one BIG thing I noticed right away was the lack of Tibetan looking people. We had left Tibet behind in Litan. I was extra happy being back amongst the beautiful Chinese girls again. Believe me, there was and is a huge noticeable difference...to me anyhow!

FOOD: We spent a few hours and walked most of the town and decided on street side bbq for dinner. The lower half of the town turns into a big BBQ Area, especially the more nearer to the bus station you get. One strange thing I noticed was the indoor bbq stores. Indoor bbq, couldn't do it, it just wouldn't feel right!

As the sun went down we re-walked some of the streets we had walked earlier and noticed one of the more normal changes you see in China after dark. Many of the Hairdressers turn their pink light on after putting their scissors away and want to do more than cut your hair.

We stopped for cards and cold beer at a nice little cafe thing....well, the beer was warm so we had to ask for it to be put in the deep freeze for us. As usual well after mid night found us bashing on the gate and yelling for the hotel staff to let us in.
Beers N Noodles to ya...shane