China: Twenty Places, Twenty Faces

Just a week from today, I’m going on another adventure. Not a big one, or a particularly long one, but my family and I are heading to China for a couple of weeks and we’ve mapped ourselves a road trip to a remote corner of beautiful Qinghai Province, to visit the Yushu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, part of the Tibetan Kham region.

Forests, hills, monasteries, mountains – it sounds peaceful and idyllic, although Yushu township was largely destroyed in a massive earthquake three years ago. After years of rebuilding it seems the area is ready to welcome back visitors like us, keen to explore the area’s natural beauty.

Yushu only became our first choice after hours of deliberation – China is full of places we have yet to see, and places we’ve already seen but want to return to visit. For inspiration, I looked through all of the photos from our epic road trip around China last year – more than 6,500 of them!

I realized how many there were that had never seen the light of day – random shots, places I didn’t write about, people we met on the road.

So in celebration of an imminent return to adventuring I thought you might enjoy a virtual flying tour of China’s most interesting places and faces. I’ve tried, as much as possible, to include only photographs I haven’t posted here before – let me know which one is your favourite!

1. Inner Mongolia – grasslands

2. Gansu Province: “Accelerating Reforestation Will Promote Ecological Balance”

3. Shanxi Province: Crossing the Yellow River

4. Tianjin Province: The Great Wall at Huangyaguan

5. Gansu Province: The Singing Sand Dunes

6. Fujian Province: Wuyi Shan Unesco Natural Heritage Site – if you look closely, you can see a man on a ladder repainting the words of an ancient poem carved into the cliff.