– Travel: off the beaten track
Dazu: Cliff-face carvings. Chongqing.
Brian Hennessy. An Australian in China. 2009 Dazu, a township near Chongqing’s western border with Sichuan province. The scene: a giant stone Buddha reclining, a smile of enlightenment on his enigmatic face as he enters nirvana. Next door, Guanyin, the Goddess of Mercy, is busy with her 1007 arms looking after the daily concerns of the faithful. […]
Lugu Hu (Lake).
Brian Hennessy. An Australian in China. 2007 Lugu Hu is a remote lake straddling the Sichuan-Yunnan border in southwest China. Perched at 2685m above sea-level, the area around this wonder of nature is home for 36,000 Mosuo people, whose culture emerged long ago from Tibetan and Naxi influences. Lugu Hu (lake) ______________________________________________________________ This ancient […]
Lijiang. Yunnan.
Brian Hennessy. An Australian in China. 2007, 2008, 2009 “Where in all the world can you find scenery comparable to that which awaits the explorer and photographer in north-western Yunnan province?” Joseph Rock, explorer and botanist, 1928. “The region from Lijiang to the Tibetan border is surely one of the most wonderful in China.” Lonely Planet, 2002. […]
North Korea: the Edge.
Brian Hennessy. An Australian in China. 2008 The Yalu River Bridge. A famous bridge which was bombed by the USA during the Korean War. A Chinese army crossed it to attack UN ground troops in 1950. On the Chinese side there is a monument to General Peng De Huai who lead that campaign. A principled, independent-thinking […]
Sky burial.
Brian Hennessy. An Australian in China. 2007 In the Tibetan township of Litang, which is 4,200 metres above sea-level on the Tibet-Qinghai Plateau in West Sichuan, sky burials occur every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Sky burial ______________________________________________________________ I had the chance to attend a sky-burial, but declined the invitation. It shouldn’t be an event for voyeurs. […]
Xiangcheng. West Sichuan.
Brian Hennessy. An Australian in China. 2007 Xiangcheng hides in a valley somewhere, between Litang in west Sichuan to the north and Zhongdian in northwest Yunnan to the south. There is nothing outstanding about this little town. It’s just another isolated community sitting in the middle of nowhere, on the edge of the Tibetan Plateau. […]