Shanxi Province, China

Shanxi was the heartland of Old China. The are many locations named as world heritage sites.

Mianshan 介休绵山

  恒源 悬空寺 The Hanging Temple

Datong Yunggang Grotoes 大同 云岗石窟

Pingyao Ancient Walled City 平遥古城

The oldest bank in China (now a museum)

乔家大院 Qiao's Mansion

五台山 Wutaishan, the holyland of Budhism in China

Inner Mongolia

15 years ago, I visited Inner Mongolia in summer 1995. The pastureland was beautiful.
Late August 2010, I made another trip to Inner Mongolia via Beijing.

Jiuzhaigou: wonderland on earth. 五岳归来不看山，九寨归来不看水

I visited Jiuzhaigou in Sichuan China during the last week of October 2009. Domestic flights from Chengdu to Jiuzhaigou were fully booked till November, so I went by road. The bus journey took a whole day (13 hours) each way. Sections of the road were still under repair (some sections were newly constructed to replace those damaged by the great quake in 2008). The road journey was hard, but scenery along the way were great.

Jiuzhaigou is on high altitudes (between 2500m - 3000m above sea level), but Jiuzhaigou is all about water: natural dams, waterfalls, and wetlands.

This is an example of the extensive damage caused by the great quake in May 2008:

Beautiful Guilin 桂林山水甲天下

I went to Guilin in October 2008. Guilin is famous for its beautiful karst landscape, and is ranked highly as a travel destination for tourists domestic and foreign.

While in Guilin, remember to take a scenic cruise on Li River 漓江 from Guilin 桂林 to Yangshuo 阳朔.

About 80 km away in the northern hills, there are several terraced rice fields high up in the mountains. These "shangri-la" date back to the Ming dynasty (600+ years ago), and the farmers are mainly of the Li tribe.

Look at the houses, notice that the higher floors are progressively larger than the lower ones?

Many bridges have roofs. They serve a dual purpose, as a bridge and as a social meeting place.

This is the Osmanthus fragrans (桂花), namesake of Guilin city. There are thousands of these trees everywhere we went. It was a coincidence that they were flowering during my visit. Sweet smell fills the air all day long.

North-east of Guilin, 60km away, there is a man-made canal (灵渠) dating back to the Qin dynasty (2000 years ago!). It connects two major river systems in China, viz. the Xiang River 湘江 which flows into the Yangtze River (长江), and the Li River (漓江) which flows into the Pearl River (珠江). It is still navigable today, and the year-round flow of water from Xiang River into Li River, irrigates surrounding areas of Xing'an (兴安) and farmlands along the Li River. This photos was taken at Xing'an, a small town at the head of the canal. Water flow is regulated through a dyke located about 1 km upstream.