Lijiang
Wutaishan Mountain
Badaling Great Wall
Stone Forest
My Memory of China Overland Tour
Travel story and picturs about Claire's overland tours in China in 2014. China overland tour is both long and unexpected,in the 2014 tour,Guide Claire from China exploration told her overland stories.
Unforgettable moments in the overland tours of last three years are countless. In Chinese, there is no accurate translation for “overland”，at least I haven't found it yet. I didn't know what overland tour was before I worked in China Exploration as a tour guide, and I didn't know I would love it so much. I am so lucky to do this job !
If u have ever experienced Chinese rush hour, u will have no doubt that china boasts the biggest population and the second largest occupancy of cars in the world. I remember one time, due to the road construction. We have been stopped in the traffic about few hours on the way from Kunming to Dali. I was so worried because the traffic jam looked like gonna take ages, and we wanna arrive earlier so we can have some time to celebrate. “Today is Christmas!” I was so wanna today be perfect, which was been ruined by the stupid traffic. Lucky thing was Gino and Jim, my leader and driver; they decorated the truck, and bought us some red hats, so at least there was a little Christmas atmosphere.
Everybody was doing their own thing quietly. Suddenly Slim said:” Jim, lets put some music”. Then Jim just realized that he has downloaded lots of Christmas songs which supposed to play when we are having the Christmas dinner. We didn't expect everybody has been cheered up when the music started” last Christmas I gave u my heart, on the very next day ,u give it away, this year……..””on the first day of Christmas my truth love gave to me a partridge in a pear tree,……”we played the music very loud, and everybody was singing and dancing in the truck, the atmosphere got so high, which included me ,I never thought I would dance like that. Suddenly we just noticed that we might got to high, lots of Chinese stood around the truck and watch us like we are the animals in the zoo. since we all have been stuck in the traffic, some of my passengers got out of the truck, and tried to talk to the other Chinese who has been stuck in here as well, they both laughed and kept talking, even they didn't understand each other. Everybody seemed happy even we couldn't celebrate the Christmas in a proper restaurant. Gino told me” this is overland, u don't know what gonna happen next minute, there is no guarantee perfect planed trip, try to be flexible, try to be optimistic ,try to be openly, that is overland.”
On the way from Wutai mountain to hanging monastery, we would pass by a mountain named east terrace which is one of the five (east, west, south, north, middle)famous terraces in Wutai mountain. We didn't think it could snow in May, which was quite unusual. One of the toll gate was closed for safety reason. And we didn't know how long it gonna take to open again. So we set up the kitchen, and had a cup of hot tea to warm up. Everybody is not like what I imagined before, upset about unexpected snow, have been stuck in the freezing cold toll gate. On the contrary, everybody seemed quite exciting about this, so we decided to get every warm thing we have and got out to have a snowball fight. If u are a foreigner here ,u can catch people's attention easily. The toll gate staffs and some Chinese tourists all looked at us when we were playing, it was like looking at panda playing. We all talked a lot about the snow, because after two days we had a very warm fancy party on the great wall. See how changeable the weather is, what u can to do is the same, try to be flexible, try to be optimistic ,try to be openly, we are doing overland.
Wrote by Claire Liao from China Exploration
Dec 1st, 2014
