Showing posts with label river. Show all posts
Showing posts with label river. Show all posts

23 April 2011

Itinerary of a trip to South West China, 24 April - 7 May 2011

 



Click here to see a slideshow of my pictures from this trip. I advise you to view the show at full screen.
 

 Trip to South West China, Yunnan, Sichuan and Yangtse

24 April – 7 May 2011

click on an itinerary to go to its post

Date
Itinerary
Night
Km
Hours
1
in flight


2
Chengdu
0
0
3
Lijiang
0
0
4
Lijiang
90
3
5
Shangri-la
190
4
6
Shangri-la
160
3
7
Kunming
220
4
8
Chongqing
50
2
9
aboard
0
0
10
aboard
0
0
11
aboard
0
0
12
Yichang
50
1
13
Wuhan


14







1.110
22

16 August 2002

9. - 16 AUG: Border crossing into Laos, dolphins, Dong Khong

The last leg of the Mekong ride in Cambodia is the most difficult and adventurous. There is no scheduled public service from Stung Treng to the border with Laos, just after Kaoh Nang island. In fact, until very recently this border post was not officially open at all except to Lao and Cambodian nationals, though stories abound that anyone willing to fork out the necessary tips would be let through.

12 August 2002

5. - 12 AUG: Vietnamese village and departure to Phnom Penh

Waking up at the crack of dawn was not so hard as I expected, even after several long days of uninterrupted walking in the jungle and amidst ruins in sweltering heat, aggressive humidity and repeated thunderstorms. Maybe my body clocks was still on West European time, so for me it was not early morning but only late evening on the day before... Our van took us out of town, toward the shores of the Tonle Sap Lake, a wide appendix of the Mekong which extends from Siem Reap, at the mouth of the city’s eponymous river, almost all the way to the capital. Here is the base of the ferry boat service to Phnom Penh. The night is just fading away, but the air is already warm. All around us, and everything on us, is already damp. By now I was getting used to being wet (be it because of rain or sweat) as the normal state of being; for the first time in my life I learnt not to even bother to wipe my face, arms or hands, I was just wet and clothes just stuck to my skin, all the time, full stop.

18 July 2002

Book Review: River's Tale, A year on the Mekong (2003, by Edward A. Gargan, *****

Synopsis

From windswept plateaus to the South China Sea, the Mekong flows for three thousand miles, snaking its way through Southeast Asia. Long fascinated with this part of the world, former New York Times correspondent Edward Gargan embarked on an ambitious exploration of the Mekong and those living within its watershed. The River’s Tale is a rare and profound book that delivers more than a correspondent’s account of a place. It is a seminal examination of the Mekong and its people, a testament to the their struggles, their defeats and their victories.