The sun beat down as temperatures reached the upper 90’s. Sweat dripped off us as we hurried from shady spot to shady spot long the nearly empty streets. The heat even sapped the energy from the few, endlessly persistent touts who still roamed around looking for tourist dollars.
CHINA – The name alone evokes a myriad of emotions and images; the worlds largest population, communism, take out food, Chairman Mao, tai chi, the Great Wall, and tea. The country is all this and more. The enormity of the country is as intimidating as it’s history and we feel the three weeks we spent there in 2000 barely scratched the surface of this fascinating culture.
Grand China and the Yangtze was our third tour with my company, Grand European Tours, and our first experience traveling to the world of eastern medicine, culture and food. Summing up the overwhelming experience that is China is a difficult challenge. Rich in history and culture, China as a country also faces great challenges of it’s own. The immense population has created some of the worst traffic and pollution we’ve experienced, before or since. Continue reading
For this post, and several more to come, I am going to talk a little bit about my employer, Grand European Tours, and the tours Jim & I have experienced with them. Yes, this is a bit of a deviation from the normal content, but never fear, I’ll still be talking travel!
I started with Grand European Tours in 1997 and have been with them since that time, except for the two year period when we were on our RTW trip. Many of my fellow employees are also good friends and, being a small company, a type of family. Continue reading