Me like Asia!

21/11/2008

3 month!

Yep, already, and I'll soon post the first bunch of my vietnamese pics but so far I'm closing my chinese adventure with Wuhan and before that my earthquake experience in the Sichuan province. See below.

Tournedos et camembert!

Merci Antoine, sans toi j’aurais probablement fait une carence de proteine et de calcium. Wuhan ville des français, donc plein d’entreprises française, carrefour, Citroen, Peugeot et donc, fromage, bidoche sanguinolente et autre délicatesses rangée aux oubliettes depuis 2 mois et demi. Wuhan c’est aussi beaucoup d’alcool, a moins que ça soit la faute a Tonio et enfin le bonheur de passer une semaine dans un appart’, mater des films en français et surtout faire la cuisine, parce que au final, Wuhan c’est pas non plus Paris et meme avec 7 millions d’habitants, y’a pas tant de chose a voir. Photos:

Photo chines style de mon tournedos rossini, j'en bave encore.

Camembert-biere-baguette, que demande le peuple!

Wuhan city centre, dites la ville grise...

on dirait New York...

Hand Dong et Tian Shi completement saoul, pour les connaisseurs,
notez la cigarette entre mes doigts, ca ne trompe jamais...

OOOh Fabrice pechere!

Bein bravo! Et la rue des uisses alors??

Wuhan de loin, c'est mieux comme ca...

Ma potee de canard accompagne d'un bon ptit dynasty red wine 1995

Technique francaise sur une chinoise:zero pointe!

18/11/2008

Reality check!

Late post about my strange adventure in the Quincheng Mountains.

Last may, china was hit by a gigantic earthquake which killed thousand of people and left millions homeless. In total 45,552,965 were affected by the earthquake all from the Sichuan province. I decided to visit the Mt QuingCheng, Just 2 hours away from Chengdu and supposedly safe by now as the staff from my hostel told me. To make things more completed I chose to go around the mountain and not hiking in the most touristy area but a more remote village, TaiAn having the reputation to be the heart of some of the best hikes in the region.

What I discovered there looked more like the epicentre of the disaster. Every single roofs along the way to the town had collapsed, the road was partially destroyed, massive rocks and dead trees made it still very difficult to drive through. The taxi made we walk the rest of the way and after a few kilometres a mini van stopped and quiet frankly panicked made me climb in and drove me to the only hotel still standing and looking in one piece.

As nobody could speak English or French, the owner of the hotel called a guy expected to arrive in TaiAn shortly. In a perfect French he told me that an other earthquake just stroked an hour ago, nothing major but made the few people left in the town more than worried. Thomas, was his name happened to work with the governor of the province to rebuild the area. The Chinese army helped the locals for 3 months after the earthquake but since then as I witnessed are left alone, trying to rebuild stone by stone was use to be their shop, house, hotel or restaurant.

Not being able to hike for obvious safety reason I decided to do a photographic work on the people around and the town; Yu, the owner and I spent the night trying to communicate using a English-Chinese dictionary, talking about our families, how grateful she is that nobody from her side got injured and how happy she was that I decided to stay that night. In fact the whole village was happy simply because I was the first western tourist staying overnight since may. She said that the only way for them to survive is that tourists come back there even if the town and the area is not as pretty as it use to be.

I left TaiAn the following morning after exchanging a few pictures and promising that I’ll find a way to promote their hotel, The Li Jing Hotel, which by the way is a fantastic place to stay (and Yu is a great cook), I travelled back to Chengdu going directly to the airport flying in the evening to Wuhan. Somewhere in between the taxi to the airport and Wuhan, my camera was stolen and with it all the pictures shot during this 2 very emotional days. People in TaiAn will need 3 more years to get their town back in shape but I sincerely hope that tourists will not wait so long to visit the QuingCheng mountains.

07/11/2008

Pandas and funhouse in chengdu!

Snow in Shangri-la, rain in Chengdu its obvious. After 27 hellish hours in a sleeping bus + 4hours from shangri-la to Lijiang we arrive in Chengdu, filthy and shattered. The first day was 'Panda mission' and at 8am in the morning we were heading to the reproduction centre, empty belly and the same black eyes than them. It was pretty much the only good thing that we did in Chengdu beside a 1920 funhouse painfully hidden in a park which gave us some freaky fun time. For the rest, Chengdu is not what we were expecting and the bad weather didn't make this big, modern gray city looking any brighter.

Me to I'm a national tresure!

Imogene seriously thinking about buying that amazing hat.
(Not made of a real panda's head...would be way too big.)

THE FUN HOUSE!!!!!!!SCARYYYYY!

Well, kind of.

Claire, Imogene and me as the creepy freak.

No, its not a monster of the funhouse, just Mao.

Back at the bar of the guesthouse. We bumped for at least
the third time into Suresh the swiss-indian guy in 3 different cities.

Mangez du Yak, Yak ça d'vrai!

Shangri-La, lalala la la lala laaaaa, hoo Shangri-la, chantaient a l'époque Elmerfoodbeat; a moins que ce soit un autre nom... bref Shangri la est une ville flanquée a 3400m d'altitude ce qui expliquerait mon état délirant. a 50% tibétaine, le reste étant un foisonnement ethnique mélangeant Naxi, Dai et Han, a quelques heures de bus du Tibet, cette ville est devenue en quelque sorte la capitale tibetaine en chine; ici on boit tibétain, on danse et chante tibétain, les temples sont tibétain et a ma plus grande joie, on mange tibétain!

Grand carnivore devant l'éternel, c'est avec fierté que j'ajoute un nouveau bovidé a mon funeste tableau de chasse. Le Yak comme vous pouvez vous en douter ne sent pas vraiment la rose mais plutôt un peu comme la chambre a Martial 2 jours après s'être ramasser une cuite phénoménale. Oui, ça sent l' mouflon! La viande par contre serait plus de l'ordre d'un filet de sanglier ou d'un bœuf bien rassis, en potée ou en ragout, séché ou frit, le yak c'est bon mangez en!
Pour parachever ce pamphlet culinaire un peu surréaliste, je suis tombe sur un petit bistrot de derrière les fagots ou après avoir tailler le bout de gras avec le patron des lieux me suis rendu compte qu'il était suisse-allemand - zurichois- d'origine tibétaine; ajoutez a cela le fait d'être accompagne d'un genevois d'origine indienne vivant a Mumbai et moi a moitie irlandais, on faisait une belle brochette de vainqueurs.

Finalement, même si l'endroit est devenu un peu touristique, je m'y sentais très bien, mais la neige arrivant, n'étant pas équipe pour lutter contre le froid himalayens et les routes menaçant d'etre ferme dans les 2 jours, me forçait a précipiter mon depart pour le sichuan. Le temps de tremper mon postérieur dans des bains thermaux naturel creuse dans la roche et je partais pour 24h de bus pour Chengdu, Highway to hell?