Post-China

Mango & Malin lounging on the couch after the trip

Mango's first complete roll-over and up on the tummy

Ferris wheels in China

The ferris wheels fanatic in Urumqi

You won't believe it but Urumqi has TWO ferris wheels! Here we are at the second one.

Lanzhou

Nursing in the ferris wheel.

Xinjiang

Toyuog village outside of Turpan

Many places can be a changing table... Here it's a railing in the "City of Grapes" - Turpan

Malin at the market in Dunhuang...

Sand dunes

1700 meters of sand

The Crescent Moon lake oasis

Huvudbonader

After 2, 5 weeks of constant use we lost Mango's sunhat...

Here in an Uighur hat

The indispensable (but lost) sunhat from Mango's cousin Mans.

Made in China.

Restaurants

Great wall & big Buddha

Outside the city of Jiayuguan lies the "beginning" of the Great Wall.

Early morning (that's why he is wearing fleece in the desert) outside Dunhuang at a field full of weird rock formations.

One of the largest Buddhas. We spent a day getting here by bus & car & boat only to find that it's covered in scaffolding...

Thumbs up!

Interest...

and checking...

... oh! we got a thumbs up!

Mango - the Superstar

We looked at the Chinese, they looked at us. Wrong, at Mango.

It was the closest we have come to travel with a Superstar. Everyone was looking, whispering, pointing, gathering around, asking questions... touching and whisking him away...

Shanghai and Xian

Supermodern Shanghai

One day we took the train to Suzhou and the historical village Xitang outside Shanghai. The houses are built close to the canals with traditional bridges, walk ways and small restaurants along the way, lit up by lanterns in the evening. So, so cute but also our first encounter with the many, many Chinese tourists and their many, many cameras...

After 4 great days in humid, hot Shanghai we took the night train to Xian, the official "start" (or end) of the Silk Road. Since our aim was to follow the part of the Silk Road that lies within China Xian was an important city, most famous for the Terracotta Army built by emperor Qin. Thousands of clay real size soldiers all with individual faces...

China - 6000 km from Shanghai to Urumqi

Air Canada from Vancouver to Shanghai, Mango's first flight ever. This was the first worry of the trip (or at least other passengers' worry...) - how would he deal with the pressure and 12 hours of flight? But he slept and slept and slept while we watched movies :-)

Shanghai metro

The main mode of transportation was train. The Chinese trains are great and we took 5 night trains along the way. Mango really liked it. We did too except for when a fellow passenger snored too loud...

The only way to get to the big Buddha was to rent this little boat...

Another worry was of course the lack of car seat. Fortunately this ride on a moped (flakmoped) didn't last long.

we're off with only one bag to check in with