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

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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	24/4	Depart Italy via Amsterdam to Chengdu, Sichuan	in flight
2	25/4	Chengdu	Chengdu	0	0
3	26/4	Fly from Chengdu to Lijiang, Yunnan. Naxi concert	Lijiang	0	0
4	27/4	Lijiang, Yunshanping, Baisha, Black Dragon	Lijiang	90	3
5	28/4	Drive to Shangri-la, via Tiger Leaping Gorge, tibetan villages	Shangri-la	190	4
6	29/4	Shangri-la, lakes Bitahai and Shudu and visit of town, shopping	Shangri-la	160	3
7	30/4	Flight to Kunming, Shilin stone forest	Kunming	220	4
8	1/5	Kunming Western mountains, flight to Chongqing	Chongqing	50	2
9	2/5	Dazu, board ship for Yangtse cruise	aboard	0	0
10	3/5	Cruise on the Yangtse: Shibaozai	aboard	0	0
11	4/5	Cruise on the Yangtse: Shennong, clearing of dam at night	aboard	0	0
12	5/5	Three Gorges Dam, disembark, Yichang	Yichang	50	1
13	6/5	Drive to Wuhan, Yellow Crane	Wuhan
14	7/5	Fly back to Italy via Chengdu and Amsterdam
				1.110	22

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.

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.

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.