Hey Hey and a Big G'Day to you
BREAKFAST: Had the most awesome noodle dish for breakfast this morning. I have no idea what it was called but it was heavenly! It had the thinnest noodles and little bits of meat and vegetables in it, but it was the sauce that really made it. We found it just outside the Jinlu Hotel front gate. As you walk out turn right and on the right hand side about five steps away is a little noddle place with a table or two out front. AWESOME!

After breakfast we continued our little town walk and met a couple from Malta (I think). He had a camera with a HUGE lens on it. Lucky bugger. This journey I'm only using my Sony/Ericsson 2 megapixel phone/camera. Weight wise I'm the lucky bugger. I can't think of anything worse than carrying around a big camera case all day!

I finally found a super market where I invested in a new shaver before people began mistaking me for a monkey boy (shut up Duffy!). It was then to the bus station to purchase tickets to Ya'an the following day.

We left the bus station and headed up The Sichuan-Tibet Highway until we found the little temple that begins the stairway up Paoma Shan (mountain). Easy to find really. At the bottom is a little stall that is selling Tibetan butter and other Tibetan 'stuff'. Before that there is only houses and then trees. The entire staircase was walled by Tibetan Flags and the view of Kangding and the surrounding area were just beautiful! We climbed the stairs with the couple from Malta and their rather buxom English female friend. Half way up you can rest in a pagoda. When you continue you begin with a huge set of stairs going straight up. At the top are some ancient tombs for you to rest at and take photos. At the top is exactly what you expect to find...another Lama Factory...oops, monastery. By now I've began singing that line to the beat of the 'Adams Factory' / the 'Lama Factory'.

At the top we had a walk around and decided not to stay long. On the other side of the hill you can actually take a chair lift down. We decided to take the stairs, Judy walked and I ran. Soldiers past me by as I ran down the hill side all looking rather surprised at the stupid foreigner running down a stair case. Near the bottom I waited for Judy and watched some soldiers doing their drills at the Army Base at the foot of the stairs. As she came into sight she stabbed herself in the head with a pointy brand and dropped with a small squeal. Poor Bugger!

From the bottom of the stairs we headed out of town towards the two golden Lama Factories we spotted from the hilltop. Winding our way through the little alley ways we found the Knapsack Hostel that included Sally's Cafe. We were told by some foreigners that it no longer existed so we head back to the monastery. There was one that was being either newly built or renovated. Inside they were still laying the floor boards and painting the walls. It was such a beautiful experience to actually see a Lama Factory before it begins spurting out Lamas. We watched as the floor board man done his thing with only a hammer and a piece of string. We stared in amazement as the painter continued work on the nearly complete walls of only half the monastery.

We headed back to The Knapsack In for a pit stop and found Sally alive and well so we ordered food and stayed awhile. It was a great hostel and served great food. The lounge room was awesome and very comfortable.

CD BURNING: When we arrived back in town it was time to download our captured moments frozen in time and have them burnt onto disk to free space on our memory cards. With a 2 gig memory card I didn't really need to but after what happened in Jinghong I wasn't about to loose 2 gigs worth of memories, not even 128mb! We found a photo shop at the back of the town square beside a big Lenovo sign. Great prices for China too, only 10 Yuan a disk! Should be about 2 Yuan!

OVERSEAS CALLS: We then found an IP store that had international calls. In the square face the river and turn right up the main straight. From memory there is a large China Mobile/Unicom shop. Keep walking you have to find it as there is a river on your left and shops to your right.

FOOD & BAR: We got hungry as day turned into night and spent a most stupid hour walking from eatery to eatery in search of something that tickled the taste buds. We began at the Black Dragon Hostel (I think that was the name) and went in search. We looked at menu's and nothing seemed to stand out. An hour later we said F*%k it, lets go back to the place we had beer last night. We didn't bother with a menu and just asked for our normal Chinese delights. Judy wanted to look at the veggies to choose and they said sorry we don't cook the food here, it comes from the Black Dragon Hostel. So, we spent an entire hour, most of it walking in the rain in search of food to end up with the same menu as the first place we stepped into.

NOW THATS A REAL BUGGER!