Turberfield Family Travels - Shangri La and beyond: Week 6

Contributors

This blog follows the travels of the Turberfield family as they drop out of the normal busyness of corporate life to explore the ancient art of Tibetan Thangka, the dusty mountaintop temples of the eastern edge of the Tibetan plateau and travel overland from Singapore to England.

Offering to The Spiritual Guide in a lofty gompa perched above the natural fort of Dongwan valley, weekly trips to Shangri La's unpredictable shower rooms, keeping the cows out of the bins, scaling sacred Mount Shika, haggling for pu-er in the tea markets of Kunming and the nightly wonder of the milky way - possibly as far as it's possible to get from the subway at rush hour....

The main contributors are Michelle (also widely known as "The Boss") and David with bits and pieces from San San and Jon Jon. We hope you enjoy and look forward to your comments.

Thursday, 31 March 2011

Week 6 - Xiamen and Taipei

We arrived is the charming seaside town of Xiamen much in need of a hot shower after two days and nights on the sleeper train from Kunming. Other than the inevitable limitations to personal hygiene, our first long haul train was a surprisingly comfortable adventure filled with idle chatter, leisurely home schooling, card games, books and lots and lots of piping hot tea.

Xiamen was delightful - breezy, clean, green and well planned with a winning mix of modern high-rise and quaint old French colonial streets which were a treat to explore before taking to the sea with an overnight cruise to Keelung on route to Taipei. Pausing for a photo in front of the Rainbow Warrior which happened to be birthed at the port, we hopped on to the intercity and bumped into four familiar red robed ladies a few stops from the Kadampa Asia Dharma Celebration in Taipei and plunged into a blissful long weekend of empowerment, teaching and meditation.

Me and San San helping out in the shop, Michelle manning the festival cafe and Jon Jon charming the customers with his cheeky grin and big brown eyes - a very welcome diversion into the bosom of our Sangha family to mark the half way point of our trip in Taipei.

- Posted by Dave using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Taipei, Taiwan