fresh air

coming back to Xi'an was the natural end to a great holiday -and it was supposed to be a great opportunity to show my mum around (including a karaoke party with some colleagues) -unfortunately we landed without even seeing the ground, so bad was the pollution.

It was made even worse since we were contrasting Xi'an smog with the pure fresh air of mountains 2-4,000m up where we had spent the previous week horse-riding (sore bum!) and in the most stunning natural park in China (and possibly the world). Its hard to describe what it is like trekking amongst lush green hills and mountains with waterfalls and streams separating various local tibetan villages; the snow capped peaks in the distance coming closer and closer until we were standing in half a meter of snow under a 5,500m high mountain.

The vistas were incredible (and so was the cold in the evening, in our tents), however not even this could rival JiuZhaiGou. An area of several stunning waterfalls and tens of incredible lakes that were all colours of the rainbow reflecting the algae, the minerals, the leaves, the sky and all other things in their fresh, clear water. The varying depths of the lakes (generally quite shallow it only 1-5m deep) led to such a diverse collection of colours, it could not be painted. It is quite clear why the millions of chinese (and others) flock their every year, and with a night in a local tibetan guest-house and some fantastic examples of environmentally sustainable tourism (by chinese standards and also with signs, maps, walkways etc) it was a great couple of days.

Previously me and mum had tried sichuanese cooking, seen the pandas (cute; though I wonder what future they have), climbed a typical chinese mountain and sampled the local teas and spicy food. Despite forcing my mum to spend most of the time hanging around with 20 year olds and backpacking she loved it -though may welcome the comforable beds at home.

In the meantime I'm leaving later this weekend for the USA and Canada with a stop-off in Shanghai on the way there and a few days in Beijing on the way back; time to turn my attention away from how tibetan kids should be educated (traditionally in monasteries or in real schools) and how beautiful nature is (and cold) -and back to working with companies to develop Plan's programmes. The conference in USA should be fun too... wonder what Cleveland is like 5 years after I was last there?